Halo, Equestrian Covenant
by ShadySteps
Summary: Equestria, the stellar empire long joined together with the Covenant has commissioned an inquisition into the crusade against Humanity, such a monumental task falls into the hooves of the diligent Twilight Sparkle. Granted the title of Inquisitor can the Unicorn bring herself to admit the terrible truth should she find it?
1. Prologue

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Prologue

June 19th, 1486.

Glimmering in the starlight grand constructs of crystal and marble twisted and turned, bold multicoloured lights burning dazzlingly to light at each movement of the impossibly large spaceborne structures, hundreds of them, all turning and twisting and moving until, with a rippling suddenness, they stopped, the glowing ships facing down a dark blip at the edge of the solar system.

Respect gazed upon the Royal Equestrian Fleet, or more accurately, an image of the fleet, taken from a camera situated some were on the hull of the corvette he found himself aboard, this daring plan of his suddenly seemed foolish and suicidal.

"Prophet, they are charging cannons!" the cry came from Respect's side, the ship master was hunched forwards in his command throne his hand playing over a projected screen no doubt committed to fight this impossible mess uselessly.

"Lower our shields and send record my voice Shipmaster, we live at the mercy of the Equestrians here" Respect clasp his hands together and stepped forward, drawing a deep breath and waiting for the conformation that his voice was being carried across the void.

"To the most Resplendent Majesties of Equestria and her colonies, I come openly here to beg an audience with you, war has become all we know of each other, this situation has become unbearable, how can civilisations of such grace and magnitude as our own have degraded into such savagery!" Respect rolled his jaw, the Equestrian common tongue was hard for a species such as his, but he would persevere, the Covenant was depending upon him.

"I have come so we make speak, I prostrate myself before you and beg that you may hear my words, let us reach an accord here, by the Forerunners let us find commonality, for the sake of our descendants, let us not allow them to walk this same bloodstained road as we have, I beg of you, hear me, I am Respect."

The command deck was quiet, and as Respect looked about him, he noted that all of the Sangheili were looking up at him, there expressions unknowable, and Respect cursed himself for not dedicating more time to the study of the Sangheili language and custom. His thoughts were however interrupted as a voice filled the room.

"This is Grand Admiral Grover on behalf of the Royal magasties, come, you may dock with my ship, I will hear you and through me, so will the Princesses." Spinning with such force that his robes struck his body he turned to the Shipmaster.

"Take us forward! We must meet with them!" Respect clasped his hands together before he spoke again.

"This is our chance, Peace shall be the first step, one day we shall walk the road to salvation with the Equestrians at our side" Respect turned away from the shipmaster, his body shook with excitement, negotiations would be hard, but he was sure of himself, Peace would allow him to bring enlightenment to the Equestrians, and the Covenant would grow.


	2. Chapter One

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter One

August 30th 2552

This ship, Twilight Sparkle decided, was much too small. The purple Unicorn was flanked by her honour guard, Griffons each carrying an ornate and ancient projectile weapon, bright white armour and a rounded reflective helmet covering their faces, at this moment they were pressed against each other in a vain attempt to give Twilight as much room as possible in the Type-52 dropship, the small craft, rated for thirty passengers, seeming ill suited to the fifteen ten foot Lion-Eagles.

Twilight herself had a simple white and purple uniform denoting her role as a servant to Celestia as well as her family colours, she also had an oxygen mask in case the craft lost pressure an unlikely event given the pedigree of her pilot and she was confident enough in her magic to protect her from the void anyway. There was a lurch as the shuttle passed from space into the protected atmosphere of the hanger and her pilots voice rang out over the ships com informing her that they had entered the hanger but were refused a berth.

"Inquisitor! Come in Inquisitor!" Twilights collar barked at her in the frustratingly familiar voice of Thel 'Vadamee, Supreme Commander and subject of the Unicorns current investigation.

"This is Inquisitor Sparkle, how can I help you Supreme Commander?"

"Are you responsible for the ship currently trying to land without authorisation in my hanger"

"I am in fact on that ship right now, I have decided to relocate my investigation from the _Indomitable piety_ to your battlecruiser, it should allow me to observe the battle more effectively, Were you aware that the ship you had assigned me had a slipspace malfunction? I would have arrived days after the battle had taken place!" There was a pause and Twilight felt the lurch of a magnetic lock engaging.

"This is absurd, you have chosen this moment to delay me, this is a sensitive tactical maneuver and you..." Twilight cut him off.

"The fleet has lost over one hundred and fifty ships in this battle, this could be the greatest loss of life The Covenant has seen in a decade and as Inquisitor I demand to be present to observe, by the treaty that binds us together you are obligated in this matter to defer to me"

"Indeed" Thel 'Vadamee replied, seemingly unconcerned "Your absence from the battle would have been a tragedy, I am glad you were made aware of the malfunction just moments before we were to depart. I shall have a room made up for you, I will regret that your accommodation upon my ship will not meet... Equestrian levels of comfort, you will do nothing to impede my ability to command this fleet."

"I shall be on the command deck shortly" Twilight cut the communication and sighed in frustration, The Sangheili collectively and Thel in particular had made her investigation into the defensive war against the humans frustratingly difficult. She had been charged by the Princesses months ago with the investigation and had been shuttled from one planet filled with surrendered humans to the next. The war, from what she had seen, was being conducted exactly as it should be, human attacks into colony worlds owned by the covenant were being repelled and werever a human civilian population was encountered they were treated fairly and in accordance with military law.

But she had seen nothing but the aftermath of conflict, her attempts to observe an actual battle had been met with ancient accords dictating that no equestrian was to be conscripted to battle, malfunctioning ships that delayed her transport, excuses of the danger presented to her being too great. for months the Sangheili had refused to allow any amendment to the accord that allowed an Equestrian to Volunteer to be present at a battle, the obstinate attitude of the Sangeili had been, for some baffling reason, supported by the High Prophets.

Even with that minor legislation granting her, in theory, access to the Human instigated conflict she was still met with the seemingly impossible task of gaining access to the forward elements of the fleet.

Twilight might well be finished with her report but she had sworn she would observe this war and you don't observe anything after it's happened! She had to see the war going on to know if the war was just, this battle against the human homeworld would not only be a conclusion to the war but a conclusion to her work, she could finally declare this a just war and return to the warm fields of Equis and to the comforting embrace of her mentor, besides if the humans were to loose here then they might surrender and her oath to observe the war would be impossible, she would dishonour her entire house.

One by one her honour guard stepped over to the gravity lift and descended into the hanger, Twilight waited a moment for her pilot to exit the cockpit, the short mare wore a suit rated for the harsh reality of space, its soft blue plates and shiny reflective helmet was well worn and in some places it had been chipped away to reveal the silvery metal under the enamel coating.

The bulky middle of the suit betrayed her as a Pegasus, the padding there was so her wings could sit comfortably, an antigravity pack had been affixed to her suit to allow her to manner in space. The suit was also meant to allow a Pegasus to remove the antigravity and life support units to allow terrestrial flight but if that was actually possible Twilight did not see how.

"Inquisitor" the mare nodded her head.

"You will accompany me at all times, and you will only speak to me, you may ignore any address that is not made by a shipmaster a minor prophet or myself, remember this is a warzone, things can get messy but you are not to intervene, we are the mind of The Covenant, not the sword." Twilight paused looking at were the mares eyes would be if she could peer through the reflective helmet.

"Understood Inquisitor Sparkle" The mare hopped forwards and descended into Thel's flagship, and twilight soon followed.

* * *

The Bridge of the Seeker of Truth was quiet as Twilight, flanked on her right by one of her Griffon Honour guards and on her left by her pilot, strode forward towards the command platform.

"Welcome to my bridge Inquisitor, I believe this is the first time we have met in person." sitting in his throne and looking at a strategic display Thel 'Vadamee cast an imposing figure, it was rare for a Sangheili to stand taller than a griffon.

"Not for a lack of effort on my part I assure you" Twilight turned and began to ascend the ramp, to her surprise an equestrian seat had been affixed in place next to the shipmasters throne, a courtesy she had not expected and one that was very impressive to arrange in such a short time, had Thel anticipated her presence?

"The worst of the battle is over, however the humans have mounted a formidable defence of this system, what is worse, the humans have devised a cowardly tactic, in the past we have used orbital bombardment on military targets, on this world, Reach the humans call it we see the first deployment of military structures interlaced with civilian installations" Thel turned towards her, "It is my deepest regret that such targets had to be taken, and the lives paid to end this war without human civilian casualties has been massive"

Twilight looked towards the strategic displays before her and gasped, orbital weapons platforms with power supplies buried under civilian structures, orbital hospital facilitates used to shield warships, lists of ships and divisions, not active in the occupation, but lost.

"The battle is very much in or favour now, but it still burns brightly, estimates put our losses at Over 262 ships and tens of thousands lost attempting to silence the orbital weapons platforms."

Twilight shook her head, her hoof tapping the display showing her the mounting losses and despicable tactics used by the Humans, Thel continued.

"With the interlacing of Civilian and Military targets we were unable to gain any dominance in and around the planet itself, this has allowed the humans an unprecedented level of tactical flexibility."

Twilight frowned cocking her head, something about the display was wrong, it was a three dimensional image of the planet with highlighted military targets "the cities are too small" she turned to look at Thel who paused and waved a hand, promoting her to continue. Twilight quickly reversed the display and began searching for population centuries and farmlands as she did the calculations "The population of this world would be between five hundred million and eight hundred million."

"I have also noticed this discrepancy"

"This is not the Human homeworld." Twilight slumped at the implication "One third of the fleet wiped out for a military outpost..."

"You now understand the resolve of the Humans, they destroy the monuments of the forerunners, they defy all attempts at diplomacy, they use their own civilian populations as shields" Thel paused before continuing "They will never capitulate, never cease there heresy, never allow us peace until we find whatever world they crawled out of and contain them there. The kindness of the Equestrian is wasted upon them, your love of the broken and savage has cost us much."

The ship shuddered as it exited slipspace and Twilight did not find the strength to argue.

* * *

Twilight found herself glad for the seat as she stared out upon the burnt scraps of hundreds of ships, despite fighting for days it seemed that human resistance still burned brightly, several satellite cannons still had power from human held ground installations, several human ships were clustered around the satellites, the remainder of the human armada no doubt.

Turning, Twilight observed Thel as he began to organize and assume command of the ships in this system, despite the horrendous losses at the hands of the humans it seemed that over one hundred ships were still battle ready.

Hours passed, with the orbital cannons still active the battle in space could not be concluded, the four remaining human ships could not be destroyed, Twilight watched helplessly as brave Covenant gave their lives in the service of the great journey. She resolved that her report would include a scathing condemnation of the human conduct here.

"Why have they refused to surrender!" Twilight blurted out, rounding on Thel in one of the rare moments he was not busy with commanding this bloody mess.

"They are evacuating Demons Inquisitor" Thel turned his head "The humans are intent on spiriting away horrible weapons and unholy abominations, the deployment of demons on this world has been unprecedented also, perhaps this world is the spawning ground of-" Thel paused looking towards something that caught his eye, Twilight turned to the displays.

The human ships were moving, turning away from each other and there were telltale signs of emanating power, they intended to jump into slipspace.

"Reports are in, the demons have disengaged from the ground battle, they must be on the ships" Thel called out furiously "Formation thirty three, chase target mark one, formation Eleven, chase target mark two"

Twilight's nose twitched, her eyes drawn to the human craft, a feeling that she could not ignore.

"Supreme Commander, fleet formation one will chase target mark three" Twilight turned to Thel who stared at her before turning to his display.

"Fleet formation fifteen will chase target mark four, all ships in proximity to _Seeker of Truth_, you have been reformed into fleet formation one, you will slave yourself to my navigation computer, we will chase target mark three." he paused to turn on a privacy screen, preventing his voice from travelling beyond the command platform.

"Explain yourself Inquisitor" the Sangheili growled dangerously, Twilight paused and tried to justify her words to herself.

"Six transports were detected leaving the surface, one for each of the other fleeing ships but three docked at target mark three, if you were going to evacuate demons you would deploy them in any ship available but the majority would go to the most important ship."

"You are under the assumption that the craft could have docked with the other fleeing ships but were unable to." Thel countered looking down at the little mare.

"Trust me Commander, I have a good feeling, we want to intercept target mark three"

One by one the human ships fled and the assigned task forces followed them, the superiority of Covenant technology would allow them to arrive at the destination before the humans, no doubt after a battle like this the Shipmasters would be eager to enact revenge against the fleeing human ships and Twilight found she couldn't care less.


	3. Chapter Two

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Two

September 16, 2552

Spending weeks in transit was something Twilight had a great deal of experience with. It seemed no matter how far she went from home there was somewhere farther away still she needed to rush too.

The accommodation provided by Thel turned out to be a Sangheili barrak with an adjoining officers quarters. In due Sangheili stupidity the officers sleeping slab, because calling it a bed was quite frankly an insult, was even less comfortable then the barracks sleeping slabs. The unicorn mare was sure it was due to some twisted sense of honour or pathological fear of comfort, the dutiful protectors of the Covenant where odd in there own way.

Still Thel, it turned out, was a more agreeable personality then she had anticipated, she had spent years dogging him in an attempt to gain access to the front line of the war and had been kept at arm's length masterfully. No doubt the Council of High Prophets had aided the Supreme Commander in avoiding Twilight and her sworn inquisition.

Now that Twilight had access to more data on the battles and strategies employed in the war then she could read in a lifetime it seemed all the more pointless, searching the database she found nothing incriminating the Covenant in any wrongdoing, where excessive force was used or civilian elements are targeted it was always earmarked and dealt with in tribunal to an Equestrian standard, the war was on a scale too great for Twilight to catalogue fully in a lifetime, but everything she read, everything she searched, even the random documents and correspondence she plucked from the database, it all pointed to the same conclusion.

Twilight had plenty of time while in slipspace to work on her report, she had finished it in fact, the words had come slowly and Twilight had found herself rewriting sections of it again and again until it sat before her. Years, millions of lives in a horrific war and she had written just over a five hundred thousand words. The report itself was several million in order to include all her citations and documentation she had gathered and personally verified, but here it was, finished.

A years long war, millions of thinking lives lost, all just neatly filed away into a computer core.

A shrill chime, to the Sangheili it was a soothing tone, but Twilight had much sharper ears, tapping the screen Twilight collected herself and trotted out of her little cabin, she would finally know where that Human ship was fleeing too.

Hopefully she would find out why something seemed so wrong about all of this.

* * *

The main barrak, a long thin room with beds along one side and seating, cleaning and storage facilities along the other, the room also had a section where three or four people could exercise, something that Twilights pilot and one of her honour guards were taking advantage of.

Both were naked and had been holding up their entire body weight using only wings, while a screen next to them recorded when one of them moved themselves from almost touching the floor to pushing themselves as high as they could, the rest of her honour guard would normally be cheering and betting on one of them.

Of course the moment her door opened the lot of them shot up at attention, there little game forgotten, the only times Twilight had seen her subordinates acting like people are the times when she had used her active camouflage system to wander one of the many ships she had found herself on over the years alone.

The treatment did not bother the mare, or at least that was what she told herself, she had a job to do and it had to be done in a professional manor. Anyway if she wanted a friend she could always send a message to her brother, that always made her feel better.

Turning to look at the screen besides the exercise station Twilight was surprised to find that her Pilot was winning by quite a margin, an impressive feat and a new personal best for the mare.

"Excellent work Major Dash, You may continue when I have gone" Twilight turned to the seated Griffons "I will be making my way to the bridge and I will require two units for escort."

In an instant her Honour Guard Champion had squawked an order at one of the standing griffons and the pair donned armour and collected there weapons, the pair fell neatly in step with Twilight as the mare made ready to leave the Barrak.

* * *

Exiting Slipspace almost always flung normally quiet and peaceful ships into loud, crowded manic places, if something was going to go wrong, it almost always did so just a few moments after the ship had emerged in its destination and reactivated all its systems.

Such activity would turn most halls into pointlessly loud places Twilight did her best to avoid, however when the barrak door opened Twilight was not blasted by a wave of sound this blessing was not registered but there was a very good reason for it.

Today a cloud of Huragok had decided to remove the floor just outside of her room. Stepping confidently onto a deckplate that did not exist and then squealing in terror before a powerful talon caught her was incredibly undignified no doubt this entire situation was a conspiracy.

Looking around and inspecting the hall revealed that she had never been at risk of injury, just falling into inactive wiring and having her clothes ruined by the waste denatured coolant. Nor did she have a captive audience, the only witness of her embarrassing fall where four gently floating Huragok and her own subordinates. The Huragok had turned to look at her, or rather to see if she had broken anything by falling onto it.

"Why was I not informed of this repair!" The Unicorn expertly let out a long series of whistles as she was carefully put down by her Champion.

"Unicorn granted access to computer files, not marked for Engineering notification." the closet responded to her but turned away once it was sure she did not damage the ship.

Staying and shouting at the Huragok was tempting for a moment, but was entirely pointless outside of catharsis. They did not care in the slightest and would ignore her if she did not communicate in there awkward whistling language, Twilight had to act in a respectable and professional manner regardless. Besides this was likely the machinations of the Supreme Admiral, comfortable accommodation indeed.

Turning in a huff Twilight made her way to the bridge, just a few more weeks and she could never engage in petty power politics ever again.

* * *

The bridge was filled today. Sangheili tradition dictated that all work shifts where to be active and on duty when exiting slipspace into enemy territory, the theory is that anyone who died in the short window of time where a ship is near helpless after a jump could be replaced immediately, in practice, Sanghili had become very adept at returning to their bunks and returning to sleep after leaving slipspace.

Twilight trotted around the towering figures admirably trying to stay awake and made her way to the chair beside Supreme Commander Thel.

"You are here to observe us existing slipspace." Thel remarked, looking at her with an odd expression, it was rare for his kind to engage in small talk, no doubt he was doing it for her benefit.

"Yes, I have also finished my report, just in time"

"Ah... So you will no longer need Administrator access to my ships datacore?" Thel clicked his mandibles.

"No, that should be everything I need, once we deal with the fleeing humans I can return to _High Charity_ and make my report, then it's back to Equis" There was a pause after that, a slightly awkward silence that was broken by one of the bridge crew.

"Exiting Slipspace, all stations be ready" Suddenly, the blanket of quiet fell upon the room, the noise of thinking creatures about you was stifled, the kind of sound one only noticed in its absence.

Then that twisting feeling in her gut, a moment of wrongness, then reality asserts itself.

"Systems coming back online, no alarm." One by one the bridge crew all began to call out reports on ship systems and communications from the rest of the fleet, things vital any competent shipmaster.

"Detecting a large structure in System, displaying" and with that, what little noise had slowly began to fill the room was silenced.

A gasp of air, a wordless cry, it could have been Twilight herself and she would not have known. The room was filled with the strangled sounds of the devoted standing before the shadow of the Gods.

"By the Prophets" "It can't be" "I am unworthy" "What is it doing here?" Duty was abandoned, slowly at first, but rapidly spreading through the bridge and Twilight could hardly find it in herself to blame them, her face wet with tears, dumbstruck.

"To your stations! Rtoko 'Saramaiee, deploy six probes I wish to know everything there is to be known of this system. Xot 'Malkamaiee, update the fleet, they are to remain in position until after the Council of Masters has concluded its session!" Snapping back from the stopper of the divine the bridge crew went to work with an incredible fervour, the reserve bridge crew moved quietly to a section of the bridge where they would not be in the way and began praying quietly. Twilight would likely have gone over to join them but Then suddenly rose to his feet.

"You are calling a Council of Masters?" she blurted out, her eyes still blurred, the Sanghili nodded.

"Yes, this situation demands it" he turned away from her.

"As Inquisitor I demand a place within the Council of Masters of the Fleet" rubbing her face Twilight rose to her hooves and stared up at Thel, there was a moment of contemplation.

"Very well, this shall make you my subordinate however" The mare smiled.

"Then I submit myself to your service Supreme Admiral" she turned to look at the still image of Halo hung in space that filled the holographic projectors "I submit myself gladly as we walk The Great Journey together" the two devoted spent a moment to look into the image, then they hurried away for there was work that needed to be done.

* * *

Stepping together with Thel into the holographic conference hall Twilight took the time to look about herself. The room was very small, with a single chair and a table that protruded out of a large and powerful holographic array, clearly Equestrian in design.

Twilight stepped neatly to one side of the chair and Thel took his seat. The lights dimmed until the room was coated in shadow and then the room seemed to stretch forward. A fleets council of masters was comprised of the most influential figures that had found themselves in a given fleet. Such a council could number in the hundreds should the fleet be of a sufficient size. Such a large conference would be entirely possible and even easy to manage as the sophisticated Equestrian systems operated to manage volume levels and priority speakers.

This particular council was relatively small, it included all of the Shipmasters of the various capital class ships in the fleet as well as the few figures of particular authority and importance, like Twilight. Nine Sangheili bore the holographic mark of a shipmaster, two Kig-Yar also had such a mark and curiously a San'Shyuum was also present as a shipmaster, the last shipmaster was sat beside Twilight. Other figures had joined this council and where present in this conference much like Twilight, standing besides the shipmasters who hosted them.

Most prominently to her right the Prophet of Stewardship, standing upright even in his advanced age, no doubt with the aid of some gravity manipulation. His smug expression was indicative of his current authority, with Halo so close he could demand the fleet, and the Supreme Admiral, submit to him as per the Reclamation Protocol.

Standing behind one of the Sangheili shipmasters closer to the back Twilight Spotted Field Master Noga 'Putumee. He was a well respected ground commander and had, in theory, authority over all ground forces spread throughout the fleet, however, it was common for such forces to be very loyal to the ships they were assigned to.

Almost entirely invisible Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadumee quietly stepped into view, the holographic systems having trouble projecting his armour as an image given its stealth properties.

"Why is the Equestrian here?" The voice came from one of the shipmasters, his holographic notation identified him as Lat 'Ravamee. Before anyone else could speak for her Twilight turned to address the shipmaster.

"This is a unique situation and thus I have submitted myself to the fleet and have been granted a place on the council of masters as is my right as Inquisitor."

"Your presence is-"

"Indeed" the calm and pleasant voice of the Prophet of Stewardship managed to overpower the slighted shipmaster "our Unicorn friend has seen with her own eyes as we all have, this is not a situation for petty politics nor the time to air grievances. We stand in the presence of Halo, a divine wind upon our backs, this could well be the most important step in The Great Journey no doubt the days ahead will call upon us all."

There was murmuring and muttering of agreement following the Prophets words, Twilight bowed her head in respect to the Religious leader.

"We must establish a forward base upon the Ring, discover its wonders, learn of its majestic purpose and all the while report back to the High Council" the Prophet continued.

"That is a secondary objective" The Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee words seemed harsh and guttural compared to the spoken honey of the Prophet

"Secondary? What possible objective could be more vital then our divine mandate?"

"The human ship will arrive soon, we must discover how they knew of this installation, what there objective in this system is and we must prevent any human from reaching Halo" The Prophet nodded, contemplative.

"You are right, the heretics presence is unacceptable"

"The Human ship will arrive in three days" every head in the room snapped to Twilight as she spoke.

"How can you know this?" demanded one of the Shipmasters.

"Human Slipspace engines follow a common design principles and flaws, calculating the time a human ship will spend in slipspace is as simple as working out the distance in space between the system where the ship entered slipspace and the system where the ship will exit slipspace and size of the vessel." The room was once more filled with silence as the Council processed this information.

"You would not happen to know where the ship will exit slipspace?" The Prophet turned back towards the little mare.

"Human technology focuses on simplicity and reliability, accuracy is simply not a concern of the humans, normally this would be one of their failings but in this situation it is a strength, it is impossible to determine where in this system the human ship will appear but it shall appear in three days." after she finished Thel began to speak.

"Dispersed recon pickets will have to be deployed, this human ship had two main cannons and could fire them one after the other or even together, and continue to fire many more times in a battle, such an armament could overwhelm the shields of a lesser capital ship and destroy it." he paused as if in contemplation but begin again before anyone could interrupt him

"The fleet will be divided into four task forces, each containing a Battlecruser and two lesser capital ships. Task force one shall be led by _Purity of Spirit_ supported by _Blameless Conceit _and _Just Cause_." The holographic display shifted at the Supreme Admirals words, the shipmasters being shuffled into groups as they were assigned into task forces.

"Task force two shall be led by _Undiminished Entelechy_ and supported by _Reverence_ and _Boundless Awe_." The two Kig-Yar, the lack of bright spines denoting them as both Shipmistresses, turned to look at each other and then at the Singhili that had been assigned to lead both ships, Twilight could almost see the shoulders of the _Undiminished Entelechy's_ Shipmaster sag at the prospect of dealing with the pair.

"Task force three shall be led by _Truth and Reconciliation_ supported by _Esteem_ and _Infinite Succor_. Task force four shall be led by _Sacred Inquisitor_ supported by _Penance_ and _Pilgrim,_ Inquisitor, you shall be reassigned to the _Sacred Inquisitor_ and will operate from that vessel " There was a pause as the Council digested the new assignments, it was interesting Twilight noted, that each of the task forces had exactly four members of the Council, with Noga 'Putumee aboard the _Purity of Spirit, _Rtas 'Vadumee aboard the _Undiminished Entelechy, _The Prophet of Stewardship aboard the _Truth and Reconciliation _and herself aboard _Sacred Inquisitor _the council would be neatly sectioned.

Twilight also supposed it was amusing to place an Inquisitor on a ship called _Sacred Inquisitor_.

"When the human ship is spotted each of the task forces will engage from a different vector to destroy it, eliminating the heretic threat to Halo." One of the shipmasters offered, Thel nodded in assent.

"In the meantime we should explore this system and deploy scouts to discover the secrets the Forerunners have left for us here." Noga 'Putumee offered, given his lack of authority in space it was not surprising that he was eager to set foot on the Ring.

"Learning the secrets of Halo will be the objective of the Inquisitor and the Prophet" Thel countered "A small force may be deployed for now, various scouting teams and personal attendants to the Inquisitor and Prophet."

"We should also investigate the system itself" Twilight lit her horn and brought up an image of the system "Halo currently sits in the orbit of this Gas Giant, there is likely a reason for this, we all know that there is no accident in Forunner design, we should also scout the planets and larger celestial bodies of this system."

"I am in assent with the Inquisitor, while by far the most grand thing we see in this system no doubt there are more wonders waiting to be found in this holy place besides Halo." The Prophet offered.

Slowly, the Council came to a close, Shipmasters logging off from the holographic conference and the room shrinking until Twilight was alone with Thel once more.


	4. Chapter Three

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Three

September 19, 2552

Three days turned out to be vanishingly little time at all when considering the monumental task before the small fleet, probes were deployed rapidly until the fleets supply was utterly exhausted. New probes from what little material was available had been commissioned but Huragok were busy with the many millions of repair tasks for ships that had not long ago been party to the most deadly battle of the war required.

Twilight had also been adjusting to her new position, Thel expected competence and Twilight was eager to prove herself, she was the only Equestrian to take up arms in war in over a thousand years. To say the Shipmasters under her command were sceptical of her ability was an understatement.

The system was rather standard affair, four barren worlds, a gas giant, sixteen moons, twelve orbiting the gas giant and a ring of asteroids around the very edge of the system, the only Forerunner installations present was an extensive mining facility on the gas giant designated Threshold and Halo itself.

A wide screen of Type-31 Fighters had been deployed in groups all over the system. Each had two crew members and about a weeks food supply, if the human ship appeared the fleet would know almost instantly.

The cargo bays of Twilight's ships had been emptied of ground assets as the purple mare ordered her forces down to Halo, the ring was an incredible thing, each section a monument to natures beauty and the mastery the forerunners had over technology. Twilight had chosen a scattering of islands and hilly ranges to deploy her forces with standing orders for each group to map the area and interface with any forerunner system they could, progress has been slow but promising.

Dealing with the other task forces when necessary had proven to be awkward at best, with so much work to do and so little manpower it was common for dozens of requests for supplies, personnel and reports to be made from one task force to another over the course of a day. Honestly Twilight was beginning to suspect that Thel's motivation for his division of the fleet was to avoid having to be caught in every attempt at power politics and force appropriation.

Finding time for sleep had been difficult with so much work to be done and it was unsurprisingly, when she had just settled down for five hours of rest that she was awoken by the alarm.

The Human ship had been spotted.

* * *

The recon picket had been too slow to raise an alarm, or the Human ship had just gotten lucky and had exited slipspace closer to Halo then they had any right too. The ship was currently approaching the ring rapidly on the only vector that did not put a task force between it and the ring.

The Human ship was long and segmented around one point one seven kilometres, its entire rear was comprised of massive engines two obvious and powerful cannons run the length of the ship, there were hard points for the primitive point defence systems the humans employed, three human fighters offered a screen to the ship and had pulled ahead to detect any traps that could have been placed along the vector of the capital ship.

As planned all of the Covenant task forces were currently advancing upon the Human ship, it seemed task force three would engage first, at current trajectories it seemed that the Human ship would be between the task force and Halo, no doubt the humans had devised some plan of survival that incorporated the ring itself.

Ordering her ships to advance with all haste Twilight ordered Savo 'Sralcamee, the Shipmaster of the _Sacred Inquisitor _to begin recording a message.

"To the Human ship, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. You have trespassed upon holy ground, you are to use all of your momentum to turn away from the ring and disable your weapons systems, should you turn away from heresy and submit yourself here you shall be treated fairly, no harm will come to your crew should you disable your weapons and turn away from the ring I swear this upon my honour. I am Inquisitor Twilight Sparkle" Twilight rolled her jaw as she finished recording her message, hopefully the humans would see reason in this place, surely even they would not dare to blaspheme in this holy place.

The chase continued and the Pillar of Autumn had no doubt received her message, it would have taken about fifteen minutes to reach them and about nine minutes for any response to reach her. Task force three was far closer and would be the first to receive any response that was offered, Twilight could only hope The Prophet would respect the lifeline she had offered the Human ship.

Just Minutes before Task force three would intercept the _Pillar of Autumn_, closely followed by Task force one and two, then finally her own task force, the Humans responded.

"To the Covenant and the 'Inquisitor', I am Captain Jacob Keyes of the UNSC _Pillar of Autumn, _my official response to your 'request' is as follows, go to hell" instantly following the message the Pillar of Autumn disengaged its primary engines and activated thrusters on the 'side' of the ship spinning in place but maintaining the momentum carrying it towards Halo. For a moment the ship appeared to coast, flying sideways towards the ring before its fore was lit with fire, its main cannon roaring brightly, in the same motion it returned to its course and fired its engines again, such agility had rarely been reported in a human ship and never in a ship of this size.

At first Twilight had feared for the ships of the task force three, they had after all been closest and were not the most powerful ships in the fleet. But the cannons shot, a deadly trinity designed to break though the shields of Covenent ships. Had missed the task force by quite a wide margin. The shot seemed to simply miss, a warning shot? Confusion turned quickly to dread as the trajectory of the deadly weapons was made clear.

Far outside of the effective range of the Human ship _Just Cause _had accelerated to a speed well beyond its normal rating, clearly eager to join battle with the humans, but such a terrible speed meant that any attempt to maneuver without slowing first would cause critical structural damage. _Just Cause _saw its doom approaching far too late, it tried to turn, risking the entire ship buckling in order to maneuver using its most powerful engines in an effort to avoid the deadly projectiles. The hull warped and twisted, bright blue fluid leaked from the cracked ship like lifeblood from a terrible wound. Then the shields lit light from the impact of the first shot, the second and third found no such resistance, in an instant _Just Cause _was reduced to twisted metal and corpses.

Whispering a prayer Twilight turned back to the battle at hoof, Task force three had entered effective weapons range with the _Pillar of Autumn, _yet no main weapons had been fired. A closer scan found that Task force three had deployed its entire inventory of insertion pods and was currently using its point defence systems to pepper the Human ship with barely any noticeable effect. The reasoning for this madness was made clear as a message finally reached her ship.

"By the will of the Gods I hereby call upon my authority as Prophet, Reclamation protocol is now in effect, my first decree is thus, no main weapons are to be fired upon the human ship, the risk to Halo is too great! Any who defy this command shall be declared a heretic and shall be fired upon."

Task force one and two met with the _Pillar of Autumn _and again the human ship turned its terrible weapon firing and Twilight watched in horror as _Boundless Awe _was reduced to nothing.

More boarding pods and point defence fire, bright orange blisters coated the hull of the _Pillar of Autumn _and in response the ship fired its cannon again and _Esteem _was no more.

Communications blasted through unencrypted channels as Task force four met the battle, screams of fear, anger, death and madness filled her ears. The final words still echoing from the dead and the horrible cries of those who would soon join them. The communication chatter from boarding teams painted a bleak picture, the first teams had been deployed to detonate explosives to destroy the cannon but from what Twilight could gather the operation had been countered with the deployment of Demons.

"Inquisitor! What are your orders?" Twilight snapped her head to the Shipmaster, the old campaigner was outwardly calm but curiously, his left leg was bouncing up and down. Twilight looked at the display again and found fear grip her heart, she could not disobey Reclamation protocol, it would do nothing but incense the manic zealots. It was a stupid thing to test the resolve of those who would seek paradise in death.

"Deploy insertion pods and focus all supplementary weapons fire amidship, aim for the 'U' in the UNSC painted on the side, if we can melt the plating in that area we might be able to dig deep enough to disable one of the reactors." Savo 'Sralcamee nodded and gave the order just as the Human ship twisted once again and fired.

_Pilgrim _was torn apart less than a second after the _Pillar of Autumn _fired, there was quiet on the bridge of the _Sacred Inquisitor _for a moment before Savo slammed his fist into his command throne.

"Damn that foolish so called Prophet!" he swore drawing gasps from the bridge crew, Savo ignored them and continued.

"If our hands were not bound in such a foolish way this _Pillar of Autumn _would have not survived to fire a second time!" Twilight glanced about, finding her eyes meeting quite a few of the Sangheili bridge crew as they cast fearful glances back in her direction.

"Its true" Twilight felt her heart skip a beat as she spoke, the thrill she supposed, of sounding as a heretic "The Prophets fear of damage to Halo stems from ignorance, a missed plasma torpedo would cause nothing but superficial damage to so grand a structure." Tension that had swallowed the room suddenly dissipated, even with the screams of the dead and dying and occasional rumble of human missile impact on the shields there was a palpable air of relief.

Had the bridge crew feared her response? Had they presumed she would act in ignorance? Death and destruction filled her senses, how could she lie to herself when the truth was staring her in the face.

The Prophet of Stewardship was responsible for the deaths of thousands today.

"Shipmaster! The Humans are abandoning the ship! Dropships, escape craft, even the fighter craft they are using them to land on Halo!"

"Like rats fleeing a ship" Twilight tapped her chin before engaging the fleet wide communications "This is the Inquisitor, All insertion pods, use the empty Human escape craft bays to deploy" Moments after Twilight issued her orders she began to see Insertion pods rush towards the empty life pod bays and the _Pillar of Autumn _spun as if in direct response to her order and faced _Sacred Inquisitor, _Twilight had enough time to shout out a warning before her world went white.

* * *

As consciousness slowly returned to Twilight the little mare let how a low nicker of discomfort, her head was pounding and with each breath she felt searing pain as what felt like lacerations and burns pressed against medical gel.

Opening her eyes to take in her situation Twilight found herself staring at thick, fluffy Bluish plumage. One of her Honour Guards was naked and sat quietly over her, a common reaction from the protective warriors. When a Griffons charge is wounded they would provide medical attention, move the charge to a defensible location and build a recovery nest, the behaviour was less training or culture and more like a deeply ingrained instinct, Twilight hardly considered her condition 'wounded', more lightly singed in any case.

Tapping the Griffons side to get the colossal bird to snap out of its meditative dozing Twilight swallowed a few times to soothe her sore throat.

"Report" There was a pause as the Griffon picked herself up and stepped to the side to allow Twilight some measure of dignity as the Unicorns horn lit and Twilight ran through a series of spells to detect any real damage to her body or mind.

"A few hours ago the Human ship fired upon this Battlecruser before disgorging the humans in many transports onto the surface of the ring. The _Sacred Inquisitor _suffered extensive damage but the angle of attack and one of the shots missing meant that the hull buckled rather then suffered a penetration however four forward decks were exposed to the void."

Twilight blinked away the cobwebs in her brain and got to her hooves, the stinging from her wounds serving to ground her firmly in consciousness. Her magic detecting nothing of note, not even a concussion, was comforting. She noted that the griffon who had sat over her had begun to don its armour once more.

"Good, good... A penetrating shot would have driven a hole through the entire ship, wait no no... Not the entire ship it would have stopped after about six hundred meters, the hanger or so, less if it passed between decks, still more than enough force to pass though the bridge, I would be dead at least." Twilight chewed her lip only to find it cracked and bloody.

"The energy from the weapon transferred to the hull and though the hull to the crew, that rendered me unconscious but not dead, but I was on the bridge..." Twilight worked her jaw, to dispel the stiffness.

"The bridge is suspended in a shock absorbing lattice independent of the superstructure, any force that would render me unconscious would have crushed any crewman located in the forward sections of the ship utterly" Twilight turned to look at her Honour guard.

"Your assessment of the damage is accurate Inquisitor" the griffon bowed her head in respect to the many dead as Twilight stomped her hooves in frustration.

"That short sighted, ignorant, stupid excuse for a Prophet!" the purple mare shook her head and turned back to the griffon as her shouting drew in the rest of her guard, and her pilot, from an adjoining room.

"What is that status on the Human ship? Are there still holdouts?" Twilight looked at her attendants as the looked anywhere but at her.

"Inquisitor, the boarding parties were destroyed by multiple Demon formations operating thought the ship, it is still under Human control and is currently on a collision course with Halo, at its current velocity it would be dangerous to deploy any more forces, they would die when the ship impacted Halo's surface anyway." Her Pilot at least had the heart to look her in the eye as she reported this embarrassing mess of a battle.

"The Humans are landing forces on Halo... How many are we detecting?" Twilight pushed past her attendants as she spoke, her Guard had taken her to one of the armouries, thankfully one that was very close to the bridge.

"I don't know Inquisitor, the ship began firing single occupant insertion pods at the ring and dropping a lot of mass to wreak havoc with our sensors. Then dropships, about twelve, were deployed and the fighter craft, four of them, then single use craft were fired at the ring, I don't know how many, we destroyed only a few of them, so many made it though our fighter screen." Twilight stepped over and around wounded but still quite alive crewmen as she pushed towards the bridge.

"What kind of mass was deployed? Human ships don't make use of such crude systems normally."

"Decoys, each of them displays as a weak lifesign and is about the same size as one of the insertion pods, they were ejected at the same time as the insertion pods but were quickly identified and ignored. But they saved quite a few of the insertion pods."

"Interesting... The humans deployed the 'decoys' when they began the acceleration towards Halo?"

"Yes, it seems that is when the Humans decided to abandon the ship and crash it"

The bridge was dilapidated, consoles had been utterly ruined in a dozen ways, blood coated the floor from the unlucky ones who had suffered far worse injuries than Twilight had and coolant pooled in dented floor plates.

"Inquisitor" the shipmaster glanced at her when she entered the bridge with her attendants. "It is good to see that your wounds were minor, I was surprised by how much you bleed".

"I am quite well, I hope you did not suffer any wounding?" Twilight trotted forward, any damage to the Shipmasters screens had been quickly repaired.

"Nothing, thrown about like a toy and nothing to show for it, my wife will be disappointed" Twilight smiled and shook her head.

"My Pilot reported that the Human ship has deployed 'decoys' what was done about them?" Savo 'Sralcamee shrugged and tapped at a display.

"They were deemed tactically insignificant and largely ignored, there are hundreds of them." Twilight nodded.

"Put a claim marker on them, I want them all collected and in our cargo bays." Savo looked at her quizzically but Twilight continued.

"Has the Human ship impacted Halo yet?"

"No Inquisitor, the ship has maneuvered in such a way as to slow its decent and land rather then crash directly." Savo displayed the ship on one of the displays. Even as Twilight watched the ship was making adjustments to its trajectory, in a few moments it dawned on Twilight what such activity meant, no simple computer could manage such a landing.

"What a stupid discision" Twilight could feel a grin on her face and had to hold back a laugh.

"Inquisitor, as far as I have seen only our dear Prophet has made tactical errors?" Savo leaned back as he examined the screen.

"The Human bridge crew, that heretic Jacob Keyes, he is still onboard." Twilight turned, giddy, towards the Shipmaster "We can capture him!"

"How do you know he is on that ship? We have no operatives on the ship to report this, any adjustments could be conducted by a computer or a human artificial intelligence."

"No no no. Any artificial intelligence would have been destroyed or spirited away with the evacuation, it's how humans act to deny valuable intelligence. Anyway, look here!" Twilight lit her horn to manipulate the image, zooming into a dull grey deckplate with a lump in the middle "A single escape ship that has not been fired and it is located just over a hundred meters from the bridge of the human ship." Savo frowned, squinted his eyes at the image, then turned to Twilight and looked Thoroughly unconvinced.

"Would a human Shipmaster risk his life like this? He could have left other humans to change the ships course while he fled or simply programmed a computer to perform a landing." Twilight shook her head.

"Humans don't trust each other, they like to keep a tight grip on information and expertise, it would not surprise me if this Jacob Keyes was the only one outside of an artificial intelligence that could control the ship at all. Anyway, we will need to capture any humans who use that last escape ship, we will follow the ship and then deploy a dropship to follow the escape ship to its landing when its deployed"

"We have orders from the Supreme Admiral"

"What does he want us to do?" Twilight shifted the display, the rest of the fleet was in disarray, some of them were trying to find survivors in the debris of the destroyed ships and the rest were rapidly deploying whatever ground forces they had onto a hilly continent on the surface of Halo the majority of the humans had fled too.

"His orders are to remain in orbit and conduct repairs"

"I have no intention of deploying any of my capital ships as staging grounds, that would slow the repairs massively anyway. All I will require are some dropships to go and collect the Human bridge crew." Twilight smiled and checked to see if the main hangar was damaged.

"That is an interpretation of the Supreme Admiral's orders..." Savo paused, searching for the right words. "You are following his orders in part but knowingly acting in a way that is outside of his orders, there are other forces deploying, no doubt they will collect whatever human is on that last escape ship"

"My presence is currently unnecessary, Shipmaster Figa 'Nrazumee of the _Penance_ and you are more than capable of managing the repairs in orbit, I will not be of any aid here. You are to follow the Supreme Admiral's orders, follow my orders to recover the 'decoys' and act as commander of the fourth task force in my absence, oh and don't tamper with any of the 'decoys'." Without waiting for a reply Twilight left the bridge.

As the Equestrians left Savo 'Sralcamee slumped and shook his head.

"Females."

* * *

Following in the wake of the _Pillar of Autumn _proved to be more dangerous than Twilight had anticipated. Great yellow and white blisters of superheated metal coated the ship from the point defence fire of capital ships, sections of the Human ship were crumbling and falling away and yet somehow the whole thing continued to display a seemingly impossible agility without the superstructure of the ship warping at all.

Twilight would have to board the ship after it landed to discover why exactly this unassuming human ship was so durable and was able to operate with such extensive damage. In the upper limits of Halo's atmosphere the escape ship fired and began to make its descent, the majority of the humans had landed on a hilly green continent, a few had landed on an island chain that dotted the sea between the hilly green continent and the desert continent the _Pillar of Autumn _was going to land upon.

Following the rapidly moving escape ship the Covenant squadron, a Type 52 dropship, two Type-25 transports and a wing of three Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft, tracked its descent to a small island with a large Forerunner structure jutting out of its middle.

The island was about four hundred meters wide and had an irregular semicircle shape, a thick band of jungle separated the sandy beach on one side of the island and the large steep mountain on the other. The Forerunner structure struck out from the jungle and seemed to climb the mountain with steep spires connected with thin walkways, it was unclear how much of the structure extended into the rock or if it was entirely a leaning structure. It did dawn on Twilight however that the entire ring, even the very natural looking island, was a Forerunner structure.

The human craft had dug a shallow ditch as it impacted the sandy beach, a black line that reached from the shoreline to the jungle outskirts were the craft was wedged between a clump of large tropical trees.

"The treeline will offer them a lot of cover from the air." Twilight mused, the dropship was cramped with her entire guard present as well as a Sangheili Major and a Kig-Yar Major, both commanders of the forces she had brought with her, looked over her at the holographic display.

"The humans will rush into the treeline and the Forerunner temple, it's unlikely that they will have many warriors with them, I however predict the presence of a Demon." N'tho 'Sraomee added crossing his arms.

"I doubt we will find a Demon here, reports from the continent are filled with claims of Demon presence, the humans only have a limited amount, they cannot be every were." Tath Kem fiddled with her carbine as she spoke, adjusting the weapons connection to her eyepiece.

"This is a human shipmaster, a force of authority in human ranks, one will be here to protect him." N'tho replied as Twilight looked back at him.

"Reports indicate that forests and jungles are the preferred environments of Demons, how do we approach this?" Tath looked at N'tho as the Sangheili carefully thought though the question, after a moment she let out a bark of frustration.

"It would be stupid to just walk into a Demon hunting ground, if there is even a Demon about. We should just burn down the entire thing." N'tho tapped one of the armour plates that protected his lower right jaw.

"We have three Ground support craft, two scouts and a mortar tank, deploying on the beach we can strafe the ground section by section while bombarding the forest with the tank." he nodded as if satisfied with the plan.

"Except we need to capture the humans, not burn them to a crisp." Twilight sighed and looked back at the display "Anyway such a plan would put any forces we land on the beach in danger of being shot from the treeline the moment the humans realised our intentions, our problem is that we don't know what the humans have with them and every moment we wait allows them to get deeper into that structure." Tath pointed at one of the many spires that jutted out from the mountainside.

"They are too small to land any forces on but can't a Griffon just fly over there and walk in?"

"We don't know how large the facility is, sending any of my Honour guard inside could deny them to us for the entire operation"

"Sending any of them into the Jungle is a death sentence, they are in bright white armour, you could spot them no matter were they are. You are not much better" Tath pointed a talon at Twilight's soiled clothes, her pure white and purple uniform had been torn and soiled, dark brown splotches from dried blood and medical gel covered the little mare but she was still dressed brightly enough to standout massively in the jungle.

"My Guard and I have active camouflage systems and energy shields, I can promise you that they will not nearly be as exposed as you think."

"There is nothing else we can do, we must simply disembark our ground forces and scouts and follow the main path through the jungle to the temple." N'tho paused before adding "First a scout supported by a force of Unggoy, I suggest all fifteen we have brought with us, then the Inquisitors party with active camouflage to give the impression of a gap in our lines, then the rest of our forces with the other scout as a rearguard."

"You want us just to walk right in?" Tath rubbed her head. "Any human with a rifle is going to let the Unggoy pass, be unaware of the Inquisitor, spot the two of us and paint the trees with our brains!"

"Then our Inquisitor will know the position of the Human and her Griffons will quickly eliminate them" N'tho smiled "besides, I doubt the human will get more then one shot off before he died, who shall they fire upon I wonder?"

Tath made a clicking yap sound as Twilight gave the order to deploy on the beach, even a terrible plan was better then doing nothing.

* * *

The sky was a moody orange and the sea was a sparkling deep blue as Twilight took her first steps on Halo. She could hear more then feel the pale sand crunch, a thin layer of sand and salt had fused together in the warmth of the day only to be broken with the Unicorns presence.

It seemed wrong, sacrilege, like she was dirtying this place with her very presence. She moved forward away from the gravity lift and towards the treeline, her body was utterly concealed by the light bending technology she carried with her. Twilight lit her horn and pulled her plasma pistol from its magnetic lock, she had carried the weapon at her side thoughtlessly for so long, it was dated now she supposed, more of a collectors item then a weapon of war, she could not see it, even a foot or so from her head and held in nothing but magic it was still concealed as light bent around the deadly thing.

Crunching, that was her only indication that her guard had formed around her. She could not see them at all but she knew that all of them were more than aware of her exact location, the distinction between an academic political officer and a warrior.

Behind her the two Majors, Tath and N'tho touched the beach and quickly hurried to the loose grouping of covenant milling about the beach and looking into the dark treeline, Looking at the human escape craft. The island was not quiet, with dozens of conversations between the fifty or so covenant regulars and the screaming, dizzying cacophony of sound emanating from the thick band of jungle on this island. Birds filled the sky, a hundred flying in lazy circles and even more perched on rocks and trees gazing down at the strange new inhabitants.

As Twilight stepped forward she could see figures in the trees, hunched little things with glowing fingers and spines jumping from tree to tree and gazing out over the odd activity on the beach though compound eyes, a sea of strange white bugs collected into little balls in the puddles that dotted the beach in its low tide before being swept away when a weak wave crept up the beach sending the bugs out to sea.

Twilight approached the Human craft. It had torn a tree apart as it fell from the sky, ripped though the ground and blackened the sand and earth from the heat of its atmospheric entry. It was vile, a terrible work of art all the more galling in its simplicity. The faint hoofprints in the sand left by Twilights presence were painful, a necessary disturbance of the most beautiful of creations. What the Humans wrought was nothing short of heresy.

Trotting carefully into the treeline, doing her best to make as little sound as possible, Twilight looked into the shadowy interior of the craft, her hoof touching the Human made metal. It was slick, warm, wet, wrong and as her eyes adjusted she saw the prone figure, a Sangheili, slumped in the middle of the craft, blood coated the wall on one side and a great deal of his face had been blasted away, his lifeblood left to drip out from the craft onto halo.

A murdered captive? A grim trophy of war? What compelled this horror was lost on the Inquisitor.

Twilight turned away, the first group of Covenant, a single seat scout Vehicle with a group of sixteen Unggoy had began to move into the jungle at a slow pace. There was a dirt path into the island from the beach, a parting of the trees and bushes that so densely packed the landscape around it, no doubt nature here simply respected the will of the gods.

Twilight and her Guard fell into step behind the Unggoy, her pistol felt heavy in her arcane grip as she began to pray. Just as the great continents and the smallest insect upon the holy ground of halo were servants, instruments of the divine, so she too would serve. The infection, the parasite upon this ring would be burnt away by her righteous intent.

And the sun set as the Equestrian marched to war.


	5. Chapter Four

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Four

September 19th 2552 Night

Harsh bright light dug into the jungle around the Covenant force as they marched forward. The sources of light could be predicted from the way they moved, jerking around the treeline from place to place the Unggoy tried their best to illuminate everything around them but mostly ended up panicking themselves from the strange shapes a dozen or so rapidly moving lights create.

Slow, careful, swaying from side to side. The sangheili marched with a resolved calm that seemed to prevent a full blown rout of the Unggoy before they had even reached a battle.

Faint outlines, lights just at the very edge of a Unicorns ability to see, the Kig Yar used a spectrum of light they found very easy to see but was almost invisible to Twilight and reportedly very hard for a human to see, however there was a statistically significant increase in Kig Yar casualties when using such light against Humans, so the heretic race might have better eyesight then they had any right too.

The dirt path meandered through the jungle, a blue light at about ankle hight jutting out of the ground at regular intervals to make travel safe at night for the long ascended gods who had made Halo. There was no doubt that the Humans would be aware of the Covenant force on the island, it should also be doubtless that there was no way off the island, they would be found eventually.

Even protected with shields and active camouflage the long march through the jungle quickly sapped at Twilight's nerve in the way marching to battle did to all thinking creatures. Fear settled in and the stark reality that she was actually here, this was actually real struck her. Twilight was a political tool and a public servant, apprentice to one of the great Princesses. She had been trained to a fashion, years ago she had visited a range and learned how to use the plasma pistol now floating in her magic. Before even that she had been drilled on what to do in an assassination attempt and how to listen to her guards in an emergancy.

Never had she learned how to kill, nor how easy it was to convince herself of its necessity. Zeal left her at last, the white hot fury that could galvanize a good person to kill, scream and demand blood. The strength that had built and ruined nations.

'CRACK!'

It was an odd sound, clashing with the cacophony from the controlled nature about them, one of the Unggoy had jolted upright and slowly fell forward. For a moment nothing happened, perhaps it was not even a moment but a fraction of a second drawn out in Twilights mind, but it ended.

The jungle was filled with the steady sound of cracks as projectile weapons were discharged, surprisingly the first to react where the Unggoy, diving forward into the soft earth and shooting maddly into the treeline. Next the treeline exploded as cloaked griffons darted into the dense jungle, the rearguard pushed forward, dazzling round blue shields flickering to life as Kig Yar moved into formation and began to advance towards the weapons fire.

Sangheili darted to the sides of the path sending tight blasts of superheated plasma sailing into the darkness as they pushed forward to the Unggoy and the twin scouts began to strafe along the path spraying the jungle with white hot plasma and offering cover for the dismounted troops behind them.

Twilight blinked and suddenly she was on her back gasping for air, flaring blue light filling her vision and her active camouflage ruined. Rolling onto her side Twilight looked around at the madness about her, Kig Yar pushed past and began to fire into the now burning treeline, the entire world brightly lit in orange with flashes of blue and green.

She ran, darted into the jungle away from the firefight, her eyes burning and her legs felt heavy and stiff. She somehow still had a solid arcane grip on her pistol as she charged rapidly away from the danger and into the quiet jungle no destination in mind.

"Oh fuck!" The Unicorn did not register the speaker even as the two of them collided and rolled to a painful stop, shots rang out around her and the world was lit moment to moment in a dull yellow, flashes of perception as Twilight kicked out and pushed herself upright. Something punched her in the back of her head and the mare threw herself to the side.

Screaming and cursing filled the night, in a moment of brilliance or stupidity Twilight fed pure magic into her horn allowing a controlled burn that burned brighter than a star blinding her, and hopefully, her assailants. Screaming then a weight on her back and a sharp pain on the back of her neck. Without thought Twilight threw her weight to the side and rolled trying to dislodge her attacker and blink the stars from her eyes as the light from her horn turned from a flair to the warm glow of a normal light spell.

A figure was standing upright just a few paces away, a glowing plasma rifle in its hands pointed at her face, a warning sigil at the edge of her vision warned of her shields imminent overload. Bright blue plasma filled Twilight's vision as the plasma rifle discharged sending a pulse of superheated plasma bolts right at her head, But Twilight was no longer there.

Her body burned as she forced magic from her fat and bone into a complicated spell and in an instant she was displaced. The grey world between worlds was well known to any who had the opportunity to travel the stars, the other members of the Covenant called it slipspace, a dimension that allowed them to bypass great distance with relative speed. But it was known as Tartarus to the ancient unicorn, a place to deposit criminals and where failed sorcerers found themselves trapped for eternity.

In an instant Twilight was back and standing behind the plasma rifle armed human, to the common observer Twilight had simply been in one place and was now in another but the Unicorn knew the truth, she had been in both places at the same time.

"Drop! Drop it now!" Twilight screamed and pointed the plasma pistol she by some miracle still had, only later would she realise her barely coherent words were in Equestrian. But the figure complied to the universal language of screaming while holding a deadly weapon, it dropped the plasma rifle it had been operating to the ground and lifted its arms in the air.

"Easy, easy" The figure had a familiar voice, calm and thoughtful. "Ensign, stay very still." Twilight kept her weapon trained on the standing man, Jacob Keyes as she trotted forward keeping an eye on the two Human's, she spotted another Human limp on the ground, the figure Twilight had ran right into. The women on the ground had a white and blue coat Twilight did not recognise, it was not armour or a uniform and had a dozen or so pockets dotted about it.

The clearing was a mess, twisted and splintered wood from the Human projectile weapons and smoldering welts of plasma from her own panicked weapon discharges, Twilight did not remember activating her weapon.

"Okay now, Ensign, slowly get up, no sudden movements you got that son? Let's not give the alien a reason to shoot" Twilight moved back to keep both the prone human and the standing Captain in her sight, the battle in the distance still rang out. Human and Covenant weapon discharges filling the night, the once loud creatures of the island where now silent and nowhere to be seen.

The ensign did as he was told, getting to his feet and making his way to the Captain, he was breathing heavily and one of his teeth had been ripped out in the fight causing slick bright blood to roll over the dark skin of his chin and soak into his uniform.

"What now?" The Human asked as he reached his Captain.

"Now you drop the ammunition you have on the floor!" Twilight fed magic into her horn and pulled the plasma rifle and two fallen human weapons towards her, as the ensign choked in surprise. If the Captain was surprised by her command of the Human language he gave no indication. The ensign looked at Jacob Keyes, who offered a slight nod, then slowly pulled his pocket open and dropped three metal containers drop to the ground.

"Now her, check to see if she is alive" Twilight pulled the ammunition towards herself too, allowing it to join the items floating just behind her. Turning and walking calmly to the limp Human he put two of his fingers on her neck, then nodded. She had grey hair that ended at her jawline, CC-409871 was displayed on her jacket.

"She's alive, hit her head when you charged her. I don't want to move her without a stretcher from the lifeboat, it could cause permanent damage." Twilight nodded and paused to get her bearings, screeching in the distance, her guards had noticed her disappearance, the sound caused the ensign to snap his head about.

"What the fuck is that?" The lack of weapons discharge also indicated that, for better or worse, the firefight had finished. Twilight took a deep breath to settle herself and fed yet more power into her horn, with more time she could avoid relying upon the magic within her body and instead draw it from the world around her. coating the limp women's body in a deep purple glow and causing Jacob Keyes to stand up sharply the Unicorn lifted her in a stiff cocoon of magic, not even her hair moving within the glow.

"I will apply medical attention to this female when you are on board my ship, I will treat you fairly."

"The Covenent are fucking psychic now?" the ensign glared at Twilight and the floating woman at her side.

"Quiet now son, this is the wrong place for a conversation" He slowly walked forward his hands still held up, he kept his eyes down as he carefully navigated the jungle floor heading towards the Covenant position.

"You too, get moving, if you run I shoot" Twilight glared at the ensign as a pit grew in her gut, palpable fear she dearly wished she was hiding well.

"Okay! Okay I'm walking" the two humans moved together navigating with the light from Twilight's horn. It took far longer than it should have to reach the path again, she must have ran for longer than she thought. When Twilight and her captives broke the treeline the Unicorn found herself in a burnt clearing, fire had cleared a wide space from just a few minutes of, leaves and brush had been singed leaving a scar in the land exposed to the starlight.

Looking around there was no sign of the scout's nor of any Kig Yar, in places the fire still raged but it seemed that the plant life was damp enough to be largely resistant to flame so long as it was not being peppered with plasma.

From overhead came a loud screech and her conscious captives heads snapped up as one of her griffons, the ornate an ancient rifle in her talons identifying her as Twilights Champion Honour Guard, dived towards the small group. Hitting the ground hard her Honour Guard rushed to meet her charge before pressing her body to the ground before Twilight utterly indifferent to the shocked cries of the Humans.

"Inquisitor, I beg for your forgiveness"

"Why? What have you done?" Twilight glanced around her senses dulled with the weakness that came after adrenaline.

"While your guard eagerly joined battle with the Human decoy you turned away and tracked the Human Shipmaster. In our haste to taste blood and bring honour to our kind we forced you to risk yourself needlessly." Her champion pressed deeper into the damp ash and mud, pressing her face down at Twilight's hooves.

"N-nevermind that, Of course you are forgiven!" Twilight shouted pulling her champions head from the ground with arcane force and looking directly into the reflective domed helmet endemic of a Griffon Champion. "I need a report, how many casualties did we suffer? Did you capture any Humans? Where is N'tho and Tath?"

"Right here Inquisitor" N'tho loped towards Twilight heavily favoring his left leg "Tath has pursued one of the humans deeper into the Forerunner Temple" As he spoke Twilight felt her gaze drift to her two concious human captives, the ensign was staring wide eyed at the prostrate griffon while Jacob Keyes was looking at N'tho, one hand on his chin and the other in a pocket.

Her magic flaring Twilight grasped the strange object the Captain had been touching and pulled it from his pocket and grip.

"Is this a weapon!" she barked in Sangheili at the Human waiting for a response that would give him away.

"Pardon?" Keyes rubbed his hand glancing at the Griffon who had pulled herself up and rounded on the human before turning to Twilight and spreading his arms calmly "I know you can understand me"

"I said, is this a weapon?" Twilight barked in english and stomped her hoof in anger, more though the Captain avoiding confirming her suspicions then having to repeat herself.

"Oh, no its a pipe, I didn't mean to startle you" Twilight put the pipe in her front breast pocket while offering her best glare at the Captain and turned to N'tho who had watched the exchange with a quizzical expression.

"You shall be given command here, regroup with Tath, if you can recover the human do so but do not spend a single life in the attempt, I will send more supplies down shortly." Twilight sent a communication ping at her Pilot.

"Major Dash, prepare the dropship for prisoner transport and inform Shipmaster 'Sralcamee that my mission was successful, I will be returning to orbit soon." Her pegusi offered a conformation but Twilight was trotting forward.

"Did you capture any of the Humans?" she looked to N'tho as her guards fell into formation around the group, much to the discomfort of the ensign.

"Yes. Two perished in the crossfire but the rest were pressed into the earth when they exhausted the ammunition of their primitive weapons, no attempt was made to replenish the weapons only to seek shelter from our collective fire" N'tho chuckled as he loped forwards tapping his right leg.

"However the Humans displayed rather impressive marksmanship. I hope your battle was satisfactory? The first Equestrian at war in over a thousand years and they capture a Human shipmaster!" Twilight looked around, thankfully casualties were surprisingly few, wounds more than deaths.

"Trust me N'tho I am as surprised as you are" three humans, two males and a female. Were kneeling, with Unggoy standing behind them waving plasma pistols about and mocking them. Twilight made her way over, doing her best to ignore one of the Sangheili minors collecting the dead and updating a datapad in his hand. Twilight trotted forwards and one of the bigger Unggoy barked and snapped to salute as the nine other surviving Unggoy formed a relatively straight line.

"Humans ready for transport boss!" he puffed out his chest with pride as he spoke. The three humans had some shallow wounds, bruises, lacerations and one of them was holding her hand close to her chest the fingers bent terribly.

"Inquisitor, and I am a civilian, you don't salute me" The Unggoy paused for a moment then he set his back straighter and saluted even harder.

"Sorry boss I am not the Inquisitor I think she is in space." Twilight looked at the Unggoy for a moment trying to work out if he was brave enough to be mocking her before pulling the three humans up onto there feet and pushing them towards the Captain and ensign.

It was time to get back into orbit.

Returning to the beach with the living Humans was a somber affair, her convocation of griffons seemed to have been shamed. Twilight could not help but feel guilty given that she had chosen to flee from the battle in a fit of madness. Feeling eyes burning into the back of her head Twilight turned to look at the Human Captain who was rubbing the nail on the back of his thumb over his bottom lip with a thoughtful expression on his face.

Twilight would have to watch him.

* * *

The flight back to _Sacred Inquisitor _was far less cramped than the one preceding it. With three ships to spread her Griffon guards out in the mare had the opportunity to, if nothing else, avoid being constantly overpowered by the scent of Griffon.

She did however have to deal with the scent of Human and blood, the five of them were sat in the corner of the dropship being watched by two of her vigilant guards. In her haste too collect the Human command crew she had neglected to plan exactly how to transfer the prisoners safely, she would gloss over that fact in her report.

"Inquisitor, this is Thel 'Vadamee." Turning away from the humans and casting a simple sound dampening spell Twilight activated her holographic display. Having the Supreme admiral contact her was a very rare thing, this was also one of the few encrypted communications being broadcast over the fleet network.

Whatever it was Thel wanted it kept quiet, Twilight sent a response.

"Supreme Admiral, I am returning to the _Sacred Inquisitor _now, is there anything I can do for you?"

"I am currently issuing a complaint of force misappropriation to the high council and the Patriarchs against the Prophet of Stewardship. Reclamation protocol is in effect but given the abject failure of the Prophet to prevent the Humans from landing on the ring. In fact the Prophet is the cause of this mess, it is imperative that I am placed back into supreme command of this expedition, if that is impossible the Prophet should be restricted from redeploying forces from other commands." Twilight bit her lip, getting _High Charity_ involved could backfire on the Supreme Admiral, but the Prophet had indeed proven himself incompitent.

"Do you want me to complain to the Equestrian councillors? Or do you simply want my endorsement of your command?"

"Should you take it upon yourself to address the honorable Equestrian quarter of the Council I would be elated but I am only asking for your endorsement of my ability, I will need it in the next hour." Tapping her hoof on the ground Twilight glanced around the room and found herself locking eyes with the Human Captain. He was sat down with a soft smile as he watched Twilight it was quiet, the moment in flight where a pilot allowed the momentum of the ship to carry it across the void with no need for readjustments, the Unicorn redoubled her sound dampening.

"I will write my endorsement and you shall have it 'Vadamee."

"Excellent, thank you Twilight Sparkle."

* * *

Dropping into the _Sacred Inquisitor's _hanger was a surprisingly somber experience, a great deal of the crew had been killed in the skirmish over the ring, enough time had passed for the most prominent damage to be fixed and the dead collected, it would however take weeks to seal and explore some of the forward decks.

Twilight had taken the time to write a simple letter of recommendation to Thel 'Vadamee for him to include in his complaint to _High Charity _she did dearly hope the belligerent Sangheili would be granted full control of this operation, this situation required the calm commitment of the dutiful Sangheili rather then the excitable zeal of the San'Shyuum, doubly so given the lack of practical military qualification of the Prophet of Stewardship.

What few figures could be seen in the expansive hanger where performing maintenance on damaged light craft or bringing in the 'decoys' as Twilight had ordered and sending them to be stored in one of the forward holds. The so called 'decoys' where large boxy structures about twelve feet tall and five feet across, a human display was prominent on one side and thick ice covered one side of the box, Humans did not deploy decoy swarms but they did eject sleeping crew into space it the ship was going to be lost.

She would have to catalogue every Human Stasis chamber tomorrow, they would all have the name and occupation of the person inside so Twilight could quickly find out what humans would have the most valuable information and who she could leave frozen, given that the Human ship was fleeing there was a good chance any human that had not been awoken was a high value person from the planet who was being evacuated.

"Take them to the brig, three meals and a four hundred metre walk once a day." Twilight turned to the five humans and the griffon escorts. "I will repair this one" Twilight nodded at the human floating in her magic by her side.

Her guard nodded and went to fulfil her orders, only her Champion Honour Guard followed dutifully behind Twilight.

The humans were led away as Twilight trotted to one of the many component fabrication rooms dotted about the ship. It was rare that any but a Huragok would make use of the rooms but Covenant ships of the line did not make use of the many medical facilities that were present on an Equestrian ship.

Setting the human down on an empty workspace as her Champion stood next to the door, the rest of the guard had gone to deposit the prisoners. Twilight began to synthesize some standard medical gel, the mare was likely the foremost medical expert in the fleet despite the study of medicine not being even a tangential focus. The sad fact was that any Unicorn of considerable ability was often a medical practitioner out of necessity, the youth of a powerful unicorn was one of fractures, burns, lacerations and magical burnout as the unstable forces where given focus and the unicorn learned control.

Human physiology was distinct from anything Twilight knew, closer to a Jiralhanae or Kig-Yar. In fact even Sangheili bore a closer biological resemblance to the Human's then any creature from Equestria. Still as Twilight's magic applied the generalized medical gel to the broken skin on the back of the Human women's head the mare checked for any obvious problems, no damage to the skull, there was no bleeding or damage to the spine.

Lastly Twilight checked for brain activity and found a tremendous amount, the psychology of alien races was often a futile field of study given the obvious bias any species had when addressing the thoughts of another. However there had never been a thinking creature encountered that could resist the necessity of sleep and the distinct patterns of decreased brain activity it brought with it, so this Human was dreaming.

Or she was awake.

Twilight could not help herself, once the thought occurred to her she gasped loudly and tried to step away and with a suddenness that paralized Twilight the human threw herself forward and grasped the pistol magnetically clasped to the unicorns side.


	6. Chapter Five

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Five

September 19th 2552 Final hours.

Her mouth felt dry and her eyes burned but it was only with incredible effort that she could bring herself to blink, to look away from the glowing weapon pointed at her face. The women had a hand around Twilight's horn, clasping it tightly as she stared down the griffon behind the Unicorn.

"Killing me would be very foalish" her words, spoken in English, drew a thin smile across the women's lips but she did not break eye contact with the Griffon.

"I am sure your friend over there would agree with you." She held the plasma weapon in her hands with ease, a familiarity that even Twilight and her long years with the weapon did not possess.

"My name is Twilight Sparkle what's your name?" even speaking slowly and carefully she could not prevent her voice cracking, she tried desperately to remember how much energy her pistol could discharge and how much heat dissipation her shields could manage but the formula blurred in her mind and all she could remember where the firm words of her big brother.

'_When someone takes you hostage you need to keep calm and polite, tell them your name and learn what they want you to call them, most of the time they won't give you a real name.'_

"You may call me Doctor Halsey, Tell me exactly where I am as succinctly as possible."

'_Talk normally and never complain or comment needlessly, do whatever they tell you to do unless it will directly result in your death.'_

"You are on a Battlecrusier in orbit of the ring, roughly forty thousand kilomiters from its closest tangent."

'_Do not attempt to escape unless you are certain beyond any doubt that you can do so without danger to your life.'_

"What authority do you have Twilight Sparkle?"

"I am an Inquisitor and currently have command authority over this Battlecruser and a Frigate as well as all ground forces and crewmen of both capital ships."

"I have a deal for you Twilight" the women's eyes did not waver from the Griffon and the pistol in her grip was steady.

"I would be very happy to discuss this deal with you Doctor Halsey, perhaps we can do it while we are more comfortable, I can get you some food and water if you would like?"

"No. You are currently collecting jettisoned cryo chambers, are they all being collected here?"

"Yes, I was going to catalogue them for transport to a habitable world where other humans are currently living." That caused the Doctor to glance down at her with an odd, worn expression, her mouth pulling inward and the faint colour vanishing.

"I want your friend over there to go and search for a particular cryo pod, its display will readout S dash L dash zero five eight. I want that chamber brought into this room then you and I shall be left alone, in repayment I will give you the encryption codes for all local UNSC communication, I will be asking for more things in the future and I have much more to offer."

"I am going to start speaking to my friend behind me, to tell her what she has to do, is that okay?"

"Go ahead." Twilight relayed the command to her Champion and heard the light tapping of talons getting slowly farther away, then the chime of a door unlocking followed by the crisp sound of the door opening, after a few moments the door closed again and Doctor Halsey's shoulders noticeably relaxed.

"Now you are going to stand wherever I tell you, if I see that horn glow I will kill you, if you respond to anyone speaking to you without me telling you to I will kill you, you may respond to me but you will be silent when I tell you to be silent, do you understand Twilight?"

"Yes Doctor Halsey." The Doctor relinquished her grip upon the Unicorn horn

"Explain your abilities in relation to that horn." Doctor Halsey began to slowly move around the room and look at the fabricators and supplies present while keeping Twilight in her view.

"My _Equestrian_ physiology allows me to absorb and store the magic present in the universe within my body. I am a member of the _Unicorn_ tribe granting me this horn that can exploit the magic around myself, or within myself, to alter reality in a variety of ways, my friend is a member of the _Griffon_ tribe but we are the same species." Human records, the very few that Twilight had been able to collect, did actually speak of magic being used by Humans in ancient times. It was likely that it had been stripped away from the Humans by the forerunners for heresy and largely forgotten.

"You can interbreed?" Twilight balked at the sterile delivery of the question.

"Well... Yes, not the two of us, we are both female but the two tribes can, all _Equestrian _tribes are the same species." Doctor Halsey nodded thoughtfully as she began to order components from the machines, it seemed Twilights theory of Humans having a good grasp of the common Sangheili language had a great deal more weight behind it now.

"There is a massive physiological distinction between you and that _Griffon_, she could absorb and store magic too?"

"Oh, well I mean in relation to other species _Equestrian_ physiology is more efficient at storing and using magical energy, Humans do it too, all living things we have studied store magic, some inanimate things too." Doctor Halsey continued to move about the room using a wide range of fabricators as if she had used the Covenant devices before, the components she was producing where simple and it looked like she was trying to build some kind of portable computer.

"Horns are the only means of altering reality in this manor?"

"No you can make devices that can be used in the same way, but they are often unstable and only work under particular circumstances, a spell can change dramatically depending on gravity, heat, weather, celestial bodies and other local fanomina you can bu-"

"Do you have spells that have medical applications?" Doctor Halsey cut Twilight off as she began to place all the components she had fabricated onto a single workspace.

"Well I am not a medical practitioner, I know some basic spells that can allow me to close simple wounds or treat burns. There are a few spells that allow me to see inside a body like I did with you and see if anything is wrong. I also have a spell that allows me to slow the passage of time in a living being somewhat but it only works if they are not resisting or not conscious." Doctor Halsey paused to look at Twilight before looking down at the plasma pistol in her hand.

"I don't have a great deal of options in this situation, the occupant of the cryogenic chamber will require surgery, if you provide aid and the occupant lives I will offer you information about UNSC and ONI operations, Forerunner facilities and the location of the Human homeworld Earth" Twilight's eyes widened as the value of such information if legitimate struck her. As she spoke Doctor Halsey was slowly putting the computer together one handed.

"That is a good deal." Twilight mused "Who is this occupant? Why would you betray the Human government for them?" The plasma pistol slowly lowered and Halsey sighed softly.

"She is my daughter, I want to take her away from all of this, I would take all of them away from this war." Halsey looked at the computer, a short glance and a sharp crack sounded out in the air, three bolts of plasma rung out and cascaded into the ground passing through the area Twilight had occupied.

The door to the fabrication room opened.

"I do want to help you Doctor Halsey, I want to accept your deal. However we cannot negotiate with my life in danger." Twilight, now safely in the corridor and blinking the madness such a rapid teleport inflicted. She was safely behind a bulkhead with twelve of her griffons, they had came rapidly when they had learned of the danger she was in and waited outside until they had an opportunity to rescue her.

"You can move from one point in space to another, that is a very impressive ability! It's almost unbelievable that the Covenant does not make wider use of this ability and it's clear military applications." Halsey called out crouching behind a counter and pointing her plasma pistol at the doorway.

"If you surrender the weapon then we will not harm you and we can work on saving your daughter's life, if you don't then my guard will be forced to rush you and will not be gentle. I am sure you understand we cannot allow you unrestricted access to the machines in that room." Twilight glanced back at the reflective helmets arrayed behind her.

They were ready to move on her word, and that depended on Halsey.

* * *

The doorway became hazy for a moment, the only indication of the presence of the colossal beasts. They approached the Doctor who stood facing a wall with her hands pressed against the wall, the plasma pistol left at a workspace on the other side of the room.

Six of them, impossibly big and quiet. Without a word one of them silently stepped forward and grasped Halsey by the shoulder with a startlingly articulate hand edged with long piercing talons and led her away, she offered no resistance.

"Thank you Doctor, now I think we can discuss a deal tomorrow after we are both well rested. Take her to another brig, no contact with the other Humans but offer her the same treatment." Twilight offered the women a smile.

"I will be looking forward to it." the Doctor replied as she was led away.

Twilight trotted into the room, lit her horn and grasped her plasma pistol. Returning the pistol to its magnetic lock on her side she began to search around for the computer Halsey had created and found it wedged between a fabricator and a wall.

Pulling it towards her she knickered in annoyance at the cracked screen, the mare settled herself down on the floor and spun the device around only to find that the seam of the computer had been melted shut, easy enough to do with a charged plasma weapon. She began to pry at the display with arcane might until it shattered and she could brush the shards onto the ground, as expected the internals of the machine were still active.

Connecting her holographic display to the computer was relatively easy given that the parts involved where all standard covenant affair. Twilight was met with a simple mathematical encryption that delayed her little more than a minute, it seemed that Halsey had made a modulating pulse device, a quick check and Twilight did find an undersized slipspace beacon in the components making up the computer, its range was so small it could barely make it across the system rendering the devices capacity to call in reinforcements insufficient. Twilight read the message that had been pulsing across the system in slipspace.

CCS CLASS BATTLESHIP _SACRED INQUISITOR_  
_500-700 SLEEPERS_  
_1 SPARTAN SLEEPER_  
_COMMAND CREW ALIVE_  
_PRIORITY TARGET INQUISITOR_

Twilight copied the message to a new document and ripped the computer apart in her magic sending its remains into the recycler shaking her head. Humans did not possess slipspace communications technology and this Halsey had clearly overestimated the range of the device she had created, no one outside of the system was ever going to hear her message.

With her head held high Twilight carried herself to her room, the ship was well into its sleeping shift making the trip a solitary one even with the constant presence of the guards about her. The moment she entered the long barrack outside of her room her communication device activated.

"Inquisitor, I hear you had some trouble with a prisoner" The calm voice of Savo 'Sralcamee, if anything he sounded amused.

"I don't know what the Human was trying to accomplish, getting herself killed I suppose." Twilight knickered in annoyance as she spoke willing her abused limbs to carry her father.

"It's hard to understand the motivations of the good and pius at times Inquisitor, don't waste your time contemplating the thoughts of the heretic." Twilight entered her room and shut the door.

"You are right, I will just get some rest while I can this has been an exhausting mess of a day" Twilight tried to pull her soiled and dirty uniform away but only managed to pull away a ruined strip of cloth off her abused body.

"Sleep well Inquisitor, I will also be retiring shotly." Twilight wished the Shipmaster a good night sleep and cut the communication and began the slow painful process of stripping the ruined uniform from her body. Blood, dirt and expired medical gel had ruined the uniform and wide sections being cut or torn had rendered thin fabric into a sopping mess of rags. Dropping them unceremoniously into a pile Twilight sighed as the cold air pressed against her form, the many lacerations that covered her body had been rapidly closed but where still tender.

Filling a wall mounted Sangheili refreshment bowl Twilight brought the antiseptic water over her body in large globes of magically suspended fluid. The Sangheili did not consider baths a worthwhile space investment, soon the bowl was brown with the material scrubbed from Twilights person.

Turning to the sleeping slab the mare quickly died herself with a spell and set herself down hissing in pain and finally allowing herself a moment to contemplate the day she had endured.

Alone, without a reason to put on a brave face anymore, Twilight curled up on the slab, the faint warming elements under the ribbed plating offering incredible comfort to the weary mare. The Inquisitor gave thanks for the considerable soundproofing present in the bulkheads around her as she began to sob, at first some pointless effort was made to resist, Twilight bit her lip and pressed her face into the warm slab under her.

The little mare found sleep eventually.

* * *

September 20th 2552.

When Twilight awoke she discarded the brown rags on the ground into a waste receptacle and proceeded to begin her preparations for the day. Food ration, cleaning herself, checking task force and fleet reports. Eventually the shockingly small list of chores where completed and Twilight left her room.

On one of the tables was a freshly fabricated white and purple uniform, her guards and pilot all snapped to attention as she entered the barrak before the pilot began to speak.

"I fabricated you a new uniform Inquisitor."

"That is excellent thank you Major, please reserve a transport for this afternoon, we have a lot of work today." Without wasting Twilights time with questions Major Dash quickly made her way out of the barrak with two of the griffons. Twilight took the opportunity to regard the new uniform, it felt heavy and odd in Twilights arcane grip, a quick examination was all it took to understand why, the material was purple with white colouring covering most of it.

The Major had somehow requisitioned a considerable amount of nanolaminate and had used it to fashion the uniform. Twilight was not an expert in material sciences but she was sure that using the material in such fine work was well beyond the capacity of any fabricator. A Huragok would likely be quite capable of working the material but would have had to be specifically instructed.

Putting the mystery aside for a moment Twilight simple put the uniform on and left with the rest of her guard, she had to check on the human stasis chambers and she was more than a little curious about Doctor Halsey's daughter.

Twilight made her way though the ship noting the odd looks directed at her from the few crewmen she encountered on her way. The hanger itself was an odd buzz of activity, dozens of crewmen and ground forces where milling about whispering, Twilight even spied the distinctive gold armour of Savo in a crowd around one of the Human stasis chambers turning towards the group she began to trot.

"Inquisitor, we have made quite the catch." Savo 'Sralcamee turned an odd look on his face. Looking past the shipmaster Twilight spotted the stasis chamber's electronic display, S-L-058 was displayed proudly on the display as well as a lot of tightly packed medical information.

Then she saw what had drawn the attention here, most of the chambers had the transparent alloy on its face obscured by ice rendering the occupant hidden from view, but here someone had brushed away the ice. Her blood turned cold and her mouth suddenly felt very dry as the little Unicorn peered into the chamber.

And into the cold, reflective faceplate of a sleeping Demon.


	7. Chapter Six

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Six

September 20th 2552.

"This is an interesting situation" The room was quiet save for a humming power cell connected to the Demons stasis chamber.

"That is one way to put it, we need to keep this quiet for now" The pair paused, the room seemed oppressively still with only the two of them stood alone in the presence of the sleeping Demon.

"I have already ordered silence in this matter. My crew are loyal and no report of the Demons presence has been made." Twilight looked at the holographic display before her, it displayed all the information within the stasis chamber and the dire condition of the Demon.

"Good, let's hope that the matter does not become known within the fleet, if the Prophet where to know then he would no doubt put pressure on us to release it to him."

"Yes, he has already made demands of me Inquisitor" Twilight's head snapped to the shipmaster.

"What demands?!"

"The Prophet demanded that I release the Human Shipmaster to the _Truth and Reconciliation" _Savo chuckled softly "However you were present and ordered the Human be kept within the brig."

"But if I were to leave and put you in charge of the task force again..."

"I would have to relinquish the Human to the Prophet."

"Right, well I will have to keep him with me in then, what if the Prophet asks for the Demon?"

"I would have to relinquish it even if you were present, secrecy in this matter is unfortunately necessary."

"This Prophet is such a nuisance" Twilight knickered and looked back at the Human text.

"Such blasphemy! To think I am honour bound to defend that fool and base creature" Savo let out a mirthful laugh before sighing. "Onto other matters, I wish to ask for a favor of you Twilight." The mare in question paused and turned to Savo.

"There is nothing wrong with asking."

"This Demon, it represents a very important opportunity. Not for me but for my Clan. I understand this is a grave thing to ask of an Inquisitor, seekers of Truth." Twilight raised an eyebrow at that but allowed the Sanghili to continue. "The records of battle show that collecting the human stasis chambers was done on your order, this makes the capture of the Demon your victory."

"But if the records where to show me simply offering advice." Twilight nodded and looked down deep in thought.

"My family, 'Sralcam bear a great many marks upon our honour, the opportunity to command this ship with my name was a miracle! To have the capture of a Demon to my name within sight of the holy ring." The Sangheili bowed his head. "On the honour of my sons if not me."

"It's not the truth, but it is very close." Twilight sighed and nodded, opening her holographic display and navigating to her report after the battle. "You turned and remarked that the Humans were deploying decoys, I replied that Humans do not use decoys in the manner described. You then ordered the 'decoys' collected and investigated."

"You do not know what this means for my family Twilight. I cannot express my gratitude but know that for as long as my name is remembered you will have friends on Sanghelios" Savo clasped his hands together. "Of course while I captured the Demon its inspection was best conducted by the present Inquisitor."

"That would only be proper" Twilight smiled and turned towards the Human text excitedly. "It's actually very interesting, it seems this Demon was never awoken for battle because of extensive wounds, if we were to wake it then it would die in minutes."

"And this Doctor Halsey claims to be its mother?" Savo turned towards the Demon with an odd look on his face.

"We must always consider the possibility she was lying, for what reason I have no idea."

"But consider if her words are truth, the mother of Demons. Could she be the mother of the other Demons who plague Halo?"

"We know very little about Demons and how they are created, she could have been speaking metaphorically or she could be mad." Savo nodded rubbing one of his mandibles.

"She asked you to help heal it. Is that possible?"

"No, the damage is too massive, several organs are irreparably damaged."

"We do have a large inventory of frozen humans, could they offer the organs necessary?" Twilight turned to Savo a horrified look on her face.

"What a horrific thought, could they honestly be so callus?"

"Humans are well known for sacrificing the minor for the sake of the major." The pair stood in silence for a moment before Savo spoke again.

"I have intercepted encrypted transmissions sent from this ship to _Infinite Succor_, from a terminal your Major used last."

"Major Dash? Who would she be contacting?"

"I don't know, I made no effort to break the encryption once I discovered the Major's involvement, she is your subordinate and it's not my place to pry into your business Inquisitor"

"Send me the files please, I will have to get to the bottom of this." Twilight shook her head.

"Of course, I will send you the files and remove them from my own data core, I wish you luck in your investigation Twilight." after a lull in the conversation Twilight spoke up again.

"How is the battle on Halo going?"

"Poorly, before the Humans landed several sites on the surface were established by the Prophet, one of them was a series of structures on a large mesa. The site has been taken by Human forces and the anti air emplacements deployed are still active."

"So taking it back must be done with ground forces alone."

"Yes, but the terrain greatly favors the defenders, unless the Humans are stupid they will be able to maintain it for weeks. However they rely upon primitive fuel for transport, soon they will lack the capacity to leave the mesa by air."

"Unless they can resupply" Twilight tapped a hoof on the ground.

"Of course, but how would they resupply?"

"The _Pillar of Autumn_! It would have everything they need. I want to go have a chat with the Human Captain, ready all ground forces in our task force for deployment on the Human ship." Twilight turned away from the stasis chamber and towards the door.

"That would leave this ship undefended Twilight are you sure about this?" Twilight smiled and turned towards Savo.

"Trust me"

* * *

The brig, one of several on the ship, was a long and wide room with dozens of cells on each wall. On one end was a console on a raised platform where a warden could monitor the vitals and activity of the occupants. On the other end was a door that led to a holding area, preventing a prisoner who was for whatever reason outside of a cell from just leaving the brig.

In this case all of the prisoners were outside of a cell. Twilight strode forwards with four of her guard as the Humans all turned to look at who had entered, at the moment they were doing the daily four-hundred meter walk. The Humans would be allowed out of the cells and made to walk around the perimeter of the room until they had walked enough before they would be given the second daily meal.

"Inquisitor, come to join us?" Captain Jacob Keyes was straight backed and held an air of authority despite his disheveled uniform.

"No I have come to pick you up, the others can continue"

"_Can_ continue" one of the other Humans, a women with fuzzy ginger hair called out as she wiped the sweat from her brow."Do you mean this shit is voluntary?" Twilight turned to look at the woman, she did not have the flight suit worn by crewmen but had a green pair of trousers and a long-sleeved shirt.

"No, I misspoke you will continue now" Twilight turned as one of the Shanghili, cloaked at all times while on duty in the brig, ordered the group to continue the walk. Jacob was led out of the brig at Twilight's side.

"So this is where you take me to a dark room and beat information out of me?" Keyes fell into step with the smaller quadruped as the griffons fell in around the pair.

"Unlike your races notoriously dishonorable information gathering tactics the Covenant has a standard to uphold."

"A standard that is only upheld in your presence it seems Inquisitor." Twilight glared at the man out of the corner of her eye.

"You have yet to ask about the women who hit her head, do you simply not care about her wellbeing?"

"I am sure she will be fine if you did not kill her, she is very resourceful"

"Well she is fine, we even made a deal, she gave me the location of _Earth_ and some other interesting intelligence." Jacob turned his head slightly but gave no impression he was shocked at her words.

"Earth? Clever, I would have gone for 'big rock' myself"

"Trying to discredit her now? Did you know that the name of my species is _Equestrian_ and the name of my homeworld is _Equis_?"

"You have a point to telling me that?"

"The _Sangheili_ homeworld is _Sanghelios_"

"They the short ones?"

"Earth is simple enough to be the name of a homeworld, homeworlds are always simple and often only represent a unifying ideal or bond. Dirt being the connection all humans have with each other is as reasonable enough"

"I told you she was clever, you are starting to convince me that this Earth exists."

"And all she wanted in return was a half dead frozen Demon." Twilight saw the man draw his lips together more firmly before returning to his impressively neutral face.

"With how scared you lot are of Spartans I'm surprised you handed it over." Twilight shrugged.

"It was the way she asked that confused me the most, she referred to the Demon as her daughter" Jacob missed a step as the pair turned a corner his eyes steel as he looked nowhere but forward.

"Sounds like Halsey alright, glad she made it." his words were curt and his smooth gait had shifted into somewhat of a stagger. Twilight decided to prod somewhere else for the moment, at least while she was in the same room as the man.

"Anyway, we are going to the _Pillar of Autumn, _consider it a little field trip." Twilight smiled as memories of her youth sprung forth.

"You want a tour?" Keyes looked down incredulously at the mare.

"Well, yes. But our main reason for going is to intercept the inevitable supply run the survivors on the ring will make, it's not like your craft run on modular and efficient energy cells after all."

"A thorn in your side I bet?"

"Well more of a contained nuisance, the real issue of the Human presence is your propensity to destroy or desecrate Forerunner artifacts."

"Like this 'Halo'"

"Exactly, I am rather interested in how you made a starship superstructure so resilient with such primitive materials however."

"Trade secret, we just make ships better than you lot"

"You take a large cannon and put thrusters and life support on it you are hardly _Huragok_"

The group finally made it to the main hanger and found it bustling with activity. Dozens of dropships were being prepared and several ground vehicles being readied for deployment, ask requested Savo had begun to mobilise all ground forces on the ship for deployment at the _Pillar of Autumn._ The Prophet of Stewardship had deployed a token force to the abandoned human warship but such a force would quickly crumble when presented with a determined human attack.

Twilights reinforcements while unannounced would be welcomed by the force present given the inevitability of an attack, or so Twilight assumed. If Keyes had any comment as to the apparent mobilisation of the Covenant forces he gave no impression, he simply walked with his hands clasped behind him gazing curiously at the bustle all around.

Standing next to an active gravity lift stood the familiar faces of Major Tath Kem and N'tho 'Sraomee. The pair where talking quietly in the presence of the rest of Twilights guard.

"-Had her! I am telling you she was talking to something in the room and when we stormed it she was gone, vanished!" Tath was pointing a finger angrily at N'tho who had his arms crossed smuggly.

"You expect me to believe that the human simply vanished? I would wager that you simply saw an opportunity for fresh meat."

"When I was under orders to capture them? I am a professional, when I have a contract I follow to the letter, I am telling you it was some sort of teleportation!" Twilight approached the pair and cleared her throat causing them both to turn and bow their heads in respect.

"Inquisitor, it is good to see you are looking well, might I ask why we are bringing the Human with us to its ship?" N'tho turned to stare down Keyes as he waited for Twilight to respond.

"Not right now, we will be departing immediately." Twilight turned to Keyes "Step into the gravity lift" the Human calmly did as he was ordered followed by Twilight, the ship had a pair of Griffon Honour guard, N'tho, Tath, Twilight and Jacob with Major Dash secured within the pilot compartment.

With a lurch the ship was disconnected from the _Sacred Inquisitor's _magnetic rail, the dropship would soon be followed by the rest of the ground forces when they were ready.


	8. Chapter Seven

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Seven

September 20th 2552.

Roaring waves and sun cracked earth, there must have been beauty to the desert bordering the vast ocean at least in the eyes of the Forerunners but Twilight could not see it. A great black trench had been cut from the water's edge to the still miraculously intact human ship, a testament to its unreasonably resilient superstructure.

Covenant presence on the ship was sparse given the relatively small forces available to the fleet and represented more of a token garrison rather than a real deterrence to assault. With the human forces localised to a continent on the other side of the expansive ocean any forces the humans could deploy had to be done so via the few dropships they had or any they could steal.

Jacob looked at the dropship display screen showing the _Pillar of Autumn_ impassively as they approached, he turned towards Twilight and opened his mouth to speak before frowning.

"You still have it?" he cocked his head as the mare followed his eyes. In her front pocket was the pipe, the same pipe she distinctly remembered dumping into the recycling shoute with her ruined uniform.

"I do" Twilight confirmed as she pulled it from her pocket and regarded the Human artifact floating in her magic trying to remember how it got there.

"May I have it back?" Keyes held out a hand.

"No, I think I will keep a hold of it for now" She replaced the pipe in her pocket. "If you show yourself worthy of trust then I might reconsider." Keyes let out a non commital grunt and turned to look back at his ruined ship. Turning away from the Human, Twilight began to speak in Sangheili

"There have been reports of mobilisation at the captured base, however we are unable to track human dropships so long as they maintain a stealth profile in low altitude of Halo"

"The Humans could deploy a large number of infantry unnoticed, however they only have a few vehicles. Reports indicate that the _Pillar of Autumn _has a large number of scouts and artillery class vehicles in a stockpile, the condition of such vehicles is unknown." Tath Kem tapped her eyepiece after she loaded her carbine.

"I think a greater concern is not the spoils the Humans can win here but the forces we have present. Anti Air emplacements have been deployed around the _Truth and Reconciliation _in response to a Human raid the Prophet is trying to keep quiet, apparently Demons stole the third task force's entire wing of Phantom gunboats and two dropships." N'tho 'Sraomee let out a chuckle. "It is unsurprising that this Prophet of Stewardship finds himself outplayed by the humans in this war given the resourcefulness of our enemy, this is a situation that calls for a Sanghili not a Prophet!" The Major let out a sigh. "Regardless with the fool relocating anti air emplacements to the _Truth and Reconciliation _he has left other outposts unprotected from air assets, there are also reports that the Prophet has found a control room and is demanding forces from other task forces to protect it including the only Scarab Platform."

"How did the Humans manage to gain the initiative here?" Tath let out a frustrated yap. "We need to isolate the Humans and disperse our larger forces not concentrate them and let the Humans go wherever they like!"

"Its this Prophet! The Supreme Admiral is trying to gain control of the situation but the best he can manage is restricting the Prophets access to assets in his own Assault Carrier, but doing that is making it harder to combat the Humans!" N'tho did not meet the eyes of the much smaller Tath instead content to fiddle with his primed and ready pair of plasma rifles.

"Regardless of the reason we do have a considerable disadvantage in dealing with Human air assets, if they deploy the Gunboats here we will lose our own dropships." Twilight tapped a hoof on the ground deep in thought.

"We are capable of acting as an anti air emplacement" The trio turned towards Twilights Honour Guard Champion who was testing the weight of the colossal rifle in her talons. Nodding, N'tho turned back towards Twilight.

"They should be able to deny the Humans air support, however we should still remove our own dropships from the battlefield, destroying even one of them would be a considerable victory for the Humans."

"We will have them return to orbit and shut down most systems, there is no sense risking them when the humans have displayed an interest in stealing or destroying our dropship capacity." Twilight turned back to the screen as Major Dash made her final approach towards a staging ground just outside of the _Pillar of Autumn._

* * *

Stepping onto the dry, cracked earth Twilight turned to regard the empty expanse around her, the horizon broken only by the colossal human ship and the ring itself. A Sanghili stood with his arms clasped behind his back close to the dropships gravity lift.

"Inquisitor, I am Dosa 'Trasumee and I was told to expect reinforcements." He looked past the mare at the Griffons as they dropped silently behind Twilight and fell into line. "I have always been curious to see an Equestrian actually fight, millenia old stories are hardly a substitute for one's own eyes."

"The forces will be deployed in a few hours, this is my honour guard. I will be inspecting the crash site and your forces before we will meet and work together to devise a plan to prevent Humans gaining control of this structure."

"I have been in communication with the Prophet. He has bidden me to give you my full cooperation and has asked me to convey his appreciation for your service Inquisitor." Twilight raised and eyebrow but did not comment, she turned as Keyes boots touched the cracked earth followed by Tath and N'tho.

"I will begin my inspection of the ship now." Twilight smiled at Dosa who moved aside and extended an arm towards the _Pillar of Autumn_.

"Please, I will arrange rations and a room with atmospheric controls for you Inquisitor. Consider yourself as a guest." The Dosa bowed his head in respect drawing a chuckle from N'tho.

"It would be best for you to remember your place 'Trasumee, we all serve as the arm of the Covenant. It is unbecoming to disrespect the beating heart of our union." Dosa's head snapped up and the Sanghili puffed up his chest.

"And who are you to challenge me in such a manor! I am clearly showing deep respect for the Inquisitor and our Equestrian sisters!"

"Stop! You can measure mandibles later." Tath cut in darting between the two males. "I am sure that any disrespect from either party is unintentional." There was a pregnant pause as the two Sanghili Majors stared each other down before Dosa shrugged.

"Yes, I am sure this was a misunderstanding. Please Inquisitor excuse me I have preparations to make." Dosa bowed his head towards Twilight again before turning away and stalking towards the crashed ship.

* * *

Twilight and Jacob walked together through the ruined ship, the great structure groaning under the weight of gravity it was never built to withstand. The screeching of twisting and compressing metals formed a strange rhythm.

"A Hexagonal structure"

"Pardon?" Jacob looked down at the Unicorn, his thumbs in his trouser pockets.

"The ship's superstructure is hexagonal and is built in a throughline manor, the hexagonal design likely has cutouts for the reactors and the cannon but the rest of the ship was built over the frame one deck at a time." Twilight nodded her head at a diagonal support strut jutting out from the middle of a hallway from the ground to the ceiling.

"Clever, we call it honeycomb."

"It's a very odd design, expensive but effective when dealing with your primitive missiles or a plasma based weapon. It would not stand up well when dealing with one of your own main cannons. That must be why this design is so rare in Human ships, a Human civil war?" Twilight glanced Keyes who shrugged.

"You are the expert it seems."

"You may not want to believe me but I am acting in your best interests" Twilight let out an annoyed nicker "Regardless of your heresy there is still value in Humanity, a chance to atone after we pass beyond in the Great Journey."

"Geoncide is acting in the best interest of humanity? You are a lunatic, what heresy are we even accused of?"

"A concerted galaxy wide effort to destroy and desecrate the artifacts and structures left behind by the Forerunners." Twilight lectured feeling her pulse quicken as she tried to quell her anger.

"Forerunners, the people who made this ring?" Jacob shrugged. "I never knew about any Forerunner artifact or structure before encountering the ring, how can I be guilty of something I was ignorant of? How do I know if any Human actually damaged anything these Forerunners made?"

"You are being disingenuous, the heresy of Humanity is a crime so great because of its scale and while not all Humans are guilty of directly committing heresy your governments and leaders are absolutely heretics. The only way to protect what was left behind for us is to force Humanity to capitulate, only then can Humanity begin to repent." Twilight sighed. "It honestly is the only way."

"So because we are accused of breaking some ancient alien stuff we need to have our worlds glassed and populations genocided until we surrender to the aliens that are glassing our worlds and genociding us?"

"The Covenant does not Genocide or bombard planets from orbit, you are being tricked by the Human covert govenment, you call it the Office Of Naval Intelligance, they have been distributing anti Covenant propaganda to Humanity and engage in altering documents and data to cover up the truth."

"Bullshit, I have seen the Covenant..." Jacob suddenly stopped walking causing Twilight and her guard to stop and turn towards the Human and pointed at Twilight. "You were at Reach."

"Yes, my duty is to investigate the Crusade against the Humans and ensure that wartime law is observed." Twilight nodded at the hallway "We still have a long walk, no stopping."

"Reach is the only planet that was not targeted by orbital weapons and the only planet where the civilian structures were avoided by ground forces." Jacob started walking again, "This is the first time your species has been encountered by Human forces and suddenly the Covenant cares about Human Civilians, how many battles have you personally observed?"

"Just Reach" Twilight glanced at the man walking beside her and let out a low nicker "I see what you are trying to do but that does not prove anything! I have direct reports and sources at other battles as well as automatically recorded ship logs."

"Reports and logs that could have been doctored, can you honestly say that all the reports you have seen have been nothing but the truth?" Twilight was about to turn and snap at the Human before the fresh memory of her own little modification of the truth filled her heart with insidious doubt. She tried to push it aside, but if she could change what the records say, change the truth. What made her so sure that Thel 'Vadamee had not done the very same thing?

"Shut up we are almost there" Twilight increased her pace causing her bipedal followers to fall behind somewhat as she tried to push lies and doubt from her mind.

* * *

The bridge had been a pointless waste of energy, any data left on the ship was hidden outside of systems accessible from the main computer. With the potential of a raid at any time Twilight had opted to simply drop off her Keyes with one of her Guards in a Human bunk room turned holding cell and meet with Dosa 'Trasumee to coordinate the defence of the ship.

Twilight, N'tho, Tath and Dosa were sat awkwardly on seats made for humans in one of the many conference rooms that dotted the colossal ship. Dosa spoke first.

"The Prophet has sent me a recording that we have managed to decrypt, the Humans are not as clever as they think they are, with your advanced grasp of the Human language Inquisitor I can think of no one better to interpret the communication." Dosa tapped a holographic display in front of him and two voices filled the room.

"_-orts that Red five has taken a Banshee and gone AWOL over" _The first voice was masculine, less so then Keyes but each word was carefully spoken and to Twilight's ear, had impeccable pronunciation.

"_Say Again, Sierra Bravo three-twelve is AWOL over?"_ The second was Feminine and seemed to have a more confident tone.

"_Affirmative, Sierra Bravo three-twelve AWOL, looks like Red Team is down one, Silva is still giving a go ahead on the op over"_

"_Copy that, what is status on Blue Team over?"_

_"Foe-Hammer is dropping them off now, they get a lovely little tropical island, hope you are not feeling jealous McKay"_

"_Nah I'm a desert kinda girl anyway, pilot is telling me to break, I will radio in when the op is green, out."_

The recording ended at the two Sangheili and lone Kig Yar turned to look at Twilight.

"It's a communication between an unknown person and someone called McKay" Twilight began leaning forward and frowning. "This McKay is leading an operation in a desert and was being told about a member of a 'Red Team' being absent, she then asked about a 'Blue Team' and was told they were being sent to a tropical island"

"The Prophet discovered an important Forerunner structure on an island, this could be the target of 'Blue Team'" Dosa clicked his mandibles in thought. "How the humans discovered this I have no idea and the implications are troubling."

"This McKay is no doubt the one coming here, your instinct was correct Inquisitor the Humans do intend to raid this ship for supplies." N'tho congratulated Twilight.

"So the matter of defence is not a speculative one, with the Supreme Admiral withholding assets from deployment we will have to rely upon the ship itself for defence." Dosa sighed "I will inform the Prophet of an impending attack on the Forerunner structure after our meeting"

"So we have six hundred troops, twenty two scouts and a tank? And the enemy have to get inside the ship? I say we could hold off anything short of a Demon pack." Tath reclined, clearly enjoying the Human ships chairs more than the rest of the rooms occupants.

"We will be deploying my Honour Guard to the top of the ship to act as an anti air emplacement, they will be able to destroy dropships with the rifles they carry." Twilight looked over a holographic map of the area with a frown. "We will spot them from miles away no matter where they come from."

"In this matter our eyes are more valuable than most of our Equipment, it seems the ring itself is dulling our shipboard sensors of its surface, a defence measure by the Forerunners?" N'tho looked towards Twilight.

"It could be any number of things, understanding the minds of the Forerunners is difficult enough for the Prophets let alone us." Twilights words were met with a collective murmur of agreement.

"We know the Humans will attempt to attack the stockpile of vehicles as a primary objective, they will leave with scant few supplies if they do not" N'tho changed the subject with the grace Sangheili where well known for.

"So the bulk of our forces will be defending that stockpile, it is a large space and will allow us enfilade fire on any Human force that pushes into it" Tath grinned at the thought.

"We will also deploy a large number to the top deck of the ship, no doubt they will fiercely contest that area, if they win it they will be able to control the area around the ship with ease." Dosa tapped the desk "The Inquisitor and her Guard will be at the top of the ship, I would recommend roughly one hundred troops deployed up there for her protection. I will lead our scouts from my mortar tank and vanquish any humans in ground vehicles"

"Did the Human offer any useful information?" Dosa asked Twilight, there was a pause as the mare stared blankly at the holographic map before her.

"No, nothing yet."

The meeting concluded Twilight left to find something to eat, something to distract herself from the bile that filled her and the screaming heresy that the Human had poisoned her mind with.

The prospect of battle suddenly paled compared to the idea that Twilight had been ignorant of a great many crimes. That Twilight may have been instrumental in recording a lie that would be known as truth.

Was that not itself a sin that would stay her hooves upon the great journey?


	9. Chapter Eight

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Eight

September 20th 2552.

It was shocking how quickly the Kig Yar and Uggoy had adapted to the _Pillar of Autumn_, _bunk rooms_ and _messing halls _were put to use in a near identical manner to the old human inhabitants, even the maps and markings on the walls had quickly been adapted and glowing notes in Sangheili had been pasted over the human english for convenient navigation of the colossal maze-like ship.

Infusion supplies and Methane tanks filled supply cupboards with Human tools and equipment dumped out of breaches in the hull, the heat resistant material that made up the ship allowed the atmosphere inside to remain cool in contrast to the near unbearable heat outside. In places the soft grey and vibrant orange found throughout the ship had been coated with black soot from internal fires or breaches in the hull as the ship entered the atmosphere.

As hundreds of personnel trickled in from the _Sacred Inquisitor _the halls and rooms began to fill. there were still large stretches of abandoned maze like passages and dark fire scorched sections but the lonely screeching of protesting metal was dulled by quiet and sometimes boisterous conversation.

Twilight was sat in a small room, not much bigger than her own little office she was using back on the _Sacred Inquisitor. _There was a worn wooden desk at witch she was currently sat as well as a cabin bed against one of the walls, small storage spaces dotted the room but held not much besides clothes.

The surface of the desk held the few interesting artifacts that Twilight had found after her search of the room. A glass bottle sealed with an amber fluid within, a clear plastic bag with dried plant matter inside, a long flat box with colourful ribbons and metal disks with pictures and words engraved into them. At the end of the desk was a small picture of a human female in the white uniform of a human admiral or captain.

Sighing Twilight collected herself and left the room, casting a sealing spell on the door to prevent the place from being looted. She did not know what she expected to find, more than anything she wanted to investigate the insane claims Keyes had made to prove him wrong and defend her Covenant from the slanderous lies he had dared to speak.

Food had not helped quiet the empty, clawing feeling deep within her gut. The sickening feeling of wrongness and guilt, a feeling that should not plague her for her cause was righteous and her mind pure of heresy. She had stopped and the quiet griffon guardians had halted without a word, Twilight stared out into the empty desert looking out at Halo, how it reached up and around with blues and greens and yellows dotting its magnificent surfice.

This place was beautiful beyond measure, a truly holy place left behind for the faithful to find and follow in its creators footsteps. The heresy within her took the opportunity to strike.

_If this place is truly only fit for the eyes of the righteous why did we follow the humans here, how did they know to come here?_

Twilight turned away, she did not have a right to bask in the radiance of the Forerunners with her mind disquiet and full of evil.

* * *

The human ship was easy to navigate, every few halls there was a map with brilliant and vibrant colours painted in lines on the walls, following a colour would lead you to where you wanted to go, at times the paint was burnt away but finding the right colour again was normally quite a simple affair.

When changing elevations Covenant ships would use ramps, gravity lifts and elevators. When changing elevations Human ships could use anything, ramps, ladders, sloping pipes, steep stairs, ramps that led into steep stairs. There was no consistency and every hall was distinct from the last with a new navigational hazard to contend with.

Eventually with screaming, protesting muscles Twilight reached the top deck of the ship. There were dozens of airlocks and cargo elevators leading out onto the hull of the ship. A quirk of human design was the odd use of external structures turning the outside hull of a ship into a maze of towers, tunnels and ramps. All considerably harder to navigate then the inside of a human ship.

"It is from here we will fire upon approaching human dropships" Twilight's Campion strode forward to stand next to the Unicorn.

"From one of the taller structures, it should allow you a commanding view of the area and anything that approaches." Twilight glanced about but found little besides melted metal and the occasional breach in the hull, very few people had bothered explored the upper decks of the ship given the lack of gravity lifts and the fact that the mechanical analogue the humans used were largely destroyed or damaged to the point of unusability.

"The raid could happen at any time, we will remain here in wait." The Griffon began to set out rounds for her rifle in a row before her as the rest of the griffons flew about to find good vantage points to fire from. While the large projectile weapons carried by her bodyguards could fire simply from collected ambient magic the destructive force would barely be enough to wound a pegusi, the large glowing arcanite rounds placed in a neat row could penetrate the thick hull of a spaceship.

"Right, I expect that they will try to secure the top deck with a dedicated force, I will make sure that N'tho and Tath's forces are ready for anything that manages to land."

* * *

Keyes turned as the door to his makeshift cell opened and Twilight stood expectantly just outside the cabin room.

"Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson and Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto" Twilight fixed the Captain with a look. "The two people who were assigned this cabin, good men. I hope they are still kicking out there"

"You must be hungry, I secured a Kig Yar food nipple and a portable console" The items in question floated in a lazy orbit around the Unicorns head. Before being gently thrown to the soft mattress of the bottom bunk next to Jacob.

"What is the console for?" Jacob picked up the round device letting it sit in the palm of his hand, with a flicker of Twilight's magic a holographic projection came into being in the shape of a fan, pressing a finger to the light Keyes found it was almost solid, but he could push his hand though it with effort.

"I have configured the device to work in English standard, it has reports of every battle and encounter of the war."

"Do you have permission to give me this?"

"I don't need permission, I am an Inquisitor, the High Council and the Princess commission me to find the truth and that is what I will bring them. You have lain allegations of war crimes against the Covenant, you will review the reports and you will make a note of any of your alleged discrepancies with the official record that were not corrected by Covenant tribunal."

"I would need to have reports from the Human side to do this accurately" Twilight waved a hoof.

"Reports that were destroyed when your artificial intelligence fled this ship?" Keyes looked at the console running his had across it and getting used to the alien interface.

"I will only be able to correct a small number of the reports here."

"If you are telling the truth, then you will only need to correct one, I will investigate." The door closed with a hiss and later a clang indicated that the Covenant magnetic lock was secure, Jacob sighed and adjusted the M6 pistol hidden in his uniform.

"Marvin you paranoid bastard." Jacob slowly got to grips with the fan-like computer and got to work correcting things from memory, he doubted that it would matter. If the Covenant had its own ONI then doing this would simply cause Twilight, if she was telling him the truth, to disappear.

But it was not like he had anything better to do.

* * *

"I see them" fourteen heads snapped to the voice that filled the sound proof helmets. Honour Guard Adlar was leaning against one of the melted bulkheads gazing out over the desert as he slowly filed one of his talons. "Two Human dropships, carrying something under one of them. Seven Phantom's around six kilometers away." There was a flurry of activity as the other Honour Guard collected the ammunition they had laid out and moved over to Adlar's perch standing in a row and getting the large weapons ready.

"I see them, looks like they are coming in quickly, if they reach that rise they will be able to deploy any ground vehicles unmolested." Erion loaded his first round into the rifle and stood on his hind legs holding the colossal rifle up in his forearms and looking down the glowing sight rail.

"Well we better molest them quickly!" There was a pause before the sheepish voice of Gabby sounded in the closed Griffon battle net. "That sounded better in my head."

"Ready yourselves, we will volley fire on my shot." At the word of a wing Champion the griffons all settled down and took up a firing stance, all of them stood up on hind legs with rifles in talon ready to fire at the dropship formation still five kilometers away. "Aim for the Phantom gunships first, remember five guns on them rather than three, fire in concert."

There was a pause as all of the griffons picked targets and looked along the sight rails getting ready to fire. Several Covenant made there way over to see what the silent lion eagles were doing, some asking questions that were ignored. With a thunderous roar they fired, not as one but within milliseconds of the Champion's rifle screaming out with murderous intent. One Sanghili who had stood far too close screamed out in agony as he clutched his head and stumbled away hearing nothing but constant ringing. As one the griffons all ejected the spent arcanite casing, the burnt mana starved material turning to ash as it hit the ground.

"Oof, embarrassing. Looks like we tickled one of them" Gabby fed another round into her rifle and closed the breach.

"Yeah, one of them is making a controlled landing, damaged but its not a kill." Kody added bringing his rifle up ready for another shot. "Looks like we get another volly before they reach the rise, they are coming in fast!"

"Again on my shot." The Covenant around the griffons all made sure to cover their ears and give them a lot of space this time. And the crowd did not have long to wait as the second volly sounded out. In the distance a popping sound could barely be heard as a bright blue and purple explosion flickered into being.

"Kill that time, still we must be rusty or something" Gabby rolled her neck and flicked her wings as she loaded in another round.

"They are at the rise, we will have to wait for them to co-" Erion let out a screech of surprise as he fell to his rump and dark blue energy shields shimmered around his prone form.

"Was that a bucking sniper?!" Gabby threw herself to the ground her head snapping about as she scanned the horizon.

"How in Tartarus did a Human make a shot like that?" Nell closed the breach on his rifle and turned to his fellow Honour Guard holding up a dull shard of metal in his talons. "It's a Feathering Human weapon!"

"Four, five Kilomiters? Impossible, Humans don't shoot that good!"

"Knocked out my shields, hit my chest and it bucking broke something!" Erion rolled onto his back and clenched his left talon with a hiss.

"Calm down, they must have simply seeded a Human somewhere closer before they made the approach, get ready for the ships to clear the rise. Erion, Find the Inquisitor and keep her safe." At the words of the Champion Erion pushed himself up, picked up his rifle and scampered off to find where the little unicorn.

"The Humans are taking their time, they must be dropping off ground assets." Gabby pressed her form against the bulkhead below her and kept her eyes trained on the sheer rise in the distance.

"Yeah, when they come over that raise that is like, two and a half kilometers, they can get to us in twelve secconds." Nell rolled his neck as he watched the raise.

"One volly then scatter, the sniper knows our perch and likely relayed that information to the pilot." Just as the Champion spoke two gunships broke the rise and fourteen shots rang out and one of the gunships lit up like a miniature sun. In reply all five guns on the last dropship began to spray superheated plasma directly at the scattering griffons before dozens of black armoured figures dived from its gravity lift onto the labyrinthine hull of the _Pillar of Autumn_ firing into the scattering Covenant forces the moment there boots touched the ground.

Gabby scrambled, blinking the superheated form of Kody from her eyes as she activated her cloak and skidded down a sheer ramp, her clutchmate had been just a second too slow. Screeching with uncontrollable rage Gabby slammed the breach of her rifle closed as she reached the end of the ramp and threw herself into the air twisting as she lined her rifle up with the Gunship overhead.

At this range it seemed impossible to miss and with Gabby's wrath another explosion rocked the _Pillar of Autumn_.

* * *

Twilight watched from a jagged hull breach as Dosa and two dozen scouts moved towards the rise the remaining human dropships had used as cover to deploy ground assets, the only warning of attack had been the thunder of Griffon rifles sounding throughout the ship.

From the rise as if to challenge Dosa and his forces four human _Warthog_ transports leapt over the rise skidding towards the scouts and Dosa's tank followed by the rumbling form of a _Scorpion_ armored vehicle no doubt deployed by one of the Human dropships. While the lighter vehicles swerved to meet each other the two behemoths of the battlefield turned almost lethargically to regard each other before they both fired in the very same instant.

Dosa's tank rang out as it was struck by the Human projectile, even as far away as Twilight was she could hear the clear almost musical note as the shell bounced off the Wraiths armour. The plasma lobbed by Dosa's tank reached its apex as the Human driver spun the body of the Scorpion about with unreasonable agility to change directions while its turret remained fixed on the Wraith.

As the first ball of plasma harmlessly struck the cracked earth a second was lobbed towards the Scorpion and a moment later the almost musical note of a bounced shell reached Twilights ears as Dosa's tank withstood the Human weapon. Oddly Twilight found herself thinking about the permanent hearing loss the Major was likely suffering. Despite the clear skill displayed by the Human driver they were unable to avoid the second arcing shot from Dosa's tank and Twilight felt a strange rushing satisfaction at watching the resulting explosion as the Scorpion was destroyed.

Satisfaction that was wiped away as a Human dropship launched a barrage of rockets at Dosa's tank turning it into little more than melted scrap as its anti gravity drive's plating was breached causing an explosion to scream out across the battlefield.

The Human dropship twisted towards the _Pillar of Autumn's_ vehicle stockpile as Twilight turned away from the battle below her, she could hear gunshots and screams, clear signs of battle coming from overhead. Her Honour Guard must have been forced to abandon their perch, that meant that the Humans had deployed forces to secure the top deck. Throwing herself into a gallop Twilight raced to the staircase that would bring her to the battle at the top deck.

* * *

Gabby bounded forward throwing one of the Humans in black armour from the top of the _Pillar of Autumn _before setting upon his companions with her talons and a predatory screech. In the distance she watched a Sanghili throw a plasma grenade onto one of the audacious Humans only for said Human to dive forward into the Sangheili and his squad turning them into a fine purple and red mist.

Plasma and conventional ballistics filled the air in a mad skirmish, there was no battle lines drawn only a maddening flurry of bloodshed as the seemingly fearless Humans threw themselves into battle. A bonded Mgalekgolo pair pushed out into one of the larger open sections of the battlefield trying to bring some semblance of order to the battle but the instant they appeared rockets thundered into them demoralizing the Covenant defenders.

A Kig Yar sniper tower was torn from the air by another rocket sending its occupants into the harsh ground with distinct cracks, the skirmishers lay still were they landed.

Overhead the damaged gunship from the very first volley shot into view dropping human reinforcements, Gabby looked about for any of her fellow griffons but could not make any of the semi transparent warriors in the area about her, she could not call any of them over the battle net as she had somehow lost her helmet in her frenzy.

Her shields flared as a Human rounded a corner and fired one of the close range shrapnel weapons at her. Gabby was upon him in an instant slamming his smaller frame into the ground with a sickening thud, a second human darted around the corner for an instant to throw a grenade of some kind, the griffon tried to dive away but she was too slow and her world turned into a blinding white light.

* * *

Twilight arrived to a massacre, the ground was slick with a terrible waste of lifeblood with prone forms that lay still all about. Human forces had pushed the Covenant, what little remained of them, back to the main staircase leading into the ship. She spotted eleven of her guard and her Champion darting in and out of cover discharging the long rifles into the amassed Human shock troops.

Humans hefting huge weapons ran from cover and took a knee in a dozen places firing rockets at her honour guard before the mare could respond. The world around her seemed to slow as Twilight found her hooves carrying her forward, the warm words of her older brother filling her mind.

"_When the plasma starts to fly, it's not Princesses or Empires you fight for, it's the ponies under your command, for them you can withstand anything."_

Her horn lit aflame as she drew magic from the plasma scorched battlefield around her, the distant yellow sun overpowered by purple light as Twilight threw herself into the middle of her remaining Covenant forces, a solid domed wall of shimmering light growing outwards from her as she worked magic that would have turned a lesser unicorn to ash.

The light shot forward detonating the rockets and blocking the projectiles as both sides of the mad skirmish stood in awe at the impenetrable wall now firmly between them.

"Fall back to the stairs!" Twilight found her voice as she focused on maintaining the spell, dozens of formule filling her mind making thinking of anything but intoxicating magic difficult. Stunned Covenant troops stood lamely but here and there Unggoy and Sangheili turned and barked at each other to fall back, injured comrades were carried or dragged away from the fighting.

"Inquisitor, you came just in time!" N'tho loped over to Twilight carrying a badly bleeding and unresponsive Tath Kem in his right arm, his left hung bleeding but still had the strength to carry a depleted and partially melted plasma rifle.

"The stairs, NOW!" Twilight's eyes burned with arcane might and her voice seemed distant as the Human shock troops began to fire at the purple dome protecting the remaining Covenant forces. The Sanghili rushed to follow Twilights command, out of the one hundred and twenty five Covenant deployed to the top deck of the Pillar of Autumn only thirty six, including her griffons, remained after only five minutes of fighting.

Twilight slowly shrank her shield as she walked backwards, the Humans walking confidently forward firing all the while until the mare found herself in the stairwell and activated the starwell blast doors, a moment later the exhausated Inquisitor felt darkness overtake her.


	10. Chapter Nine

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Nine

"Big fucker innit" McKay shrugged staring at the prone from lashed to the dropships loading ramp. It had regained consciousness after the convoy left the _Pillar of Autumn_ and had simply glared at her.

"Yeah, look at the claws, gotta be like a foot long, how the hell does it even manipulate anything?"

"Well look at the bloody guns they 'ad, I would put em on a hog rather than lug the bastards about" Corporal Hughes kicked the salvaged alien rifle on the ground causing the griffon's eyes to snap to him.

"Don't damage the weapon Corporal, it could be valuable." McKay snapped before turning again to stare at the alien.

"Right, don't want to piss it off neither."

"How the fuck are we gunna move it?"

"What? The overgrown bird? It ain't as 'eavy as it looks."

"Nah, look at the neck, I bet the fucker could go full owl on us and snap a hand off."

"Yeah Mike won't want to lose your girlfriend would ya!" McKay fought to keep a grin off her face given her subordinates banter, in all honesty she had been worrying about the prisoner. The alien had been captured after it was knocked out by a grenade going off in its face and that had just knocked it out for less than an hour without any noticeable injury. It was going to be a very difficult prisoner to keep despite Wellsley's insistence that it was to be captured.

"You're a funny fucker you are I tell you wh-"

"Quiet" McKay lifted a hand and tapped her eyepiece accepting the communication from Alpha Base.

"First Lieutenant, It is good to see you made it."

"Intel was fucked Wellsley, there were closer to eight hundred covinant rather than the one hundred you promised. And some real fucking strange new types of Covinant showed up too, big birds and some kinda psychic purple thing"

"Yes it seems that the Covenant caught wind, or predicted, our raid on the _Pillar of Autumn_ and deployed a large force to prevent it, however the gallant assault conducted by your men have won us the day. Red Team faced a much more disorganized force then you did on the top deck, even if the force in the motor pool was much larger. "

"It's not over yet, we have to get the convoy back, are you sure about this underground network Cortana is sending us though?"

"Oh absolutely, this ring is filled with chambers and tunnels, it's quite frankly colossal. Blue team is currently being inserted underground via Pelican at this 'control room', that should give you a good idea as to the scale of the network we are talking about. We might actually have a chance to contest this structure entirely if we can make effective use of it."

"Well its several hundred miles until we can get into this tunnel network, the convoy is incredibly vulnerable"

"There is little we can do but push on in this case Lieutenant, you won't be getting any additional air support. Good luck." McKay looked at the alien staring at her with what almost looked like a grin on its beak and decided she would need all the luck she could get.

* * *

Twilight opened her eyes and felt a dulling empty malase fall upon her, an old friend. It was called magical burnout but for what reason Twilight did not know, it felt more like standing at a great distance from a dear friend without the confidence to cross that casam and be with them again.

She lit her horn pushing the agony of burnout aside as she had done countless times though her education and reached out with her magic, probing the room and mapping it in her mind rather than bothering to open her eyes.

"You're awake. How about that." Twilight lifted her head and opened her eyes with a hiss as the light aggravated her headache, Keyes was sitting just across the room with both hands clasped in manacles locked magnetically to the ground. "You lost, my people made away like bandits with a great big convoy."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, one of your big friends came to collect me and then they drag you and I into a dropship. Before rushing off back to the fight." Twilight turned to Tath sitting up against a wall with her plasma pistol held lazaly in her talons.

"Shock trooper humans came in on the top deck, right on the Griffons, they did not have a chance to fire more than a few times. Then Demons, attacking the stockpile down below. Managed to get your guards to stay and fight them so long as I kept your human captain in check. Easy just told him." Tath nodded at the Human. "I would eat him if he tried anything."

"And he understood because he is fluent in Sangheili." Twilight slumped and began to stretch herself out.

"No I just have an implant that translates for me, I only know English and French." Keyes laid back with a sigh. As the door to the pilots cabin slid open with a hiss.

"Inquisitor, we need to talk." Twilight rolled her neck and pulled herself to her hooves and collected the computer on Jacobs lap in her magic. "Are you sure you should be, you know. Using magic right after a burnout?"

"Yes." Twilight nodded for Major Dash to entire the pilot cabin again and the pegusi turned while shaking her head, the pair filed into the cramped space and the door closed again with a hiss. With barely any room to stand the pair sat in seats specially designed to accommodate an Equestrian pony phasique.

"Inquisitor there were reports from the _Sac-"_

"I am aware of your communication to the _Infinite Succour_ and the encryption you have placed upon your messages, an odd behaviour but not one that breaks any protocol, do you mind telling me who you were communicating with?"

"You have decrypted the messages?"

"No I have not had the time, I would much rather you be honest with me."

"I was contacting an old friend, she is currently onboard the _Infinite Succour, _She is an academic and was requesting non critical information on animal life on Halo"

"You are telling me you were in correspondence with an academic?"

"Yes, she is an Ethologist."

"And she is currently onboard an agricultural support ship?"

"That is correct Inquisitor."

"Is she perhaps studying the evolutionary pressure of a slaughter pen?"

"She is not Inquisitor."

"Well then what is an academic doing on a food ship? Spit it out."

"She does not receive a stipend for her studies" Twilight stared at her major for a moment in disbelief.

"She is an unregistered academic?"

"She was not born on Equis" Twilight blew a raspberry and stomped a hoof in annoyance as Dash continued. "She is a competent academic and currently dealing with a San'Shyuum Legate that took control of the ship when Halo was discovered. It's meant to be an Equestrian ship."

"And this concerns you how?"

"This Legate is incompitant and is sending Equestria-"

"Colonists?" Rainbow rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Equestrian Colonists down to this gas giant, there is some kind of Forerunner facility down there. You know how deadly reclamation can be, the only ones down there are Unggoy and Colonists, none of them even halfway trained to understand the language or what they could find down there. At any moment they could trigger a security system!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" Twilight looked her pilot in the eyes.

"Requisition my friend, sh-"

"You want me to requisition a civilian. Oh sorry, not even a civilian, a _colonist!_ From an agricultural support ship so she can give me advice on the evolutionary pressures of animals while we fight a war?!"

"She won't get in the way Inquisitor."

"Are you sure about that? Are you entirely sure that she won't get in my way?"

"I am utterly convinced Inquisitor." Twilight stared at the impassive face of Major dash for a moment before sighing.

"I don't want more people to die down here Major." Rainbow Dash's eyes slowly turned to meet Twilight's her impassive mask slipping slightly.

"She is a colony brat Twilight, if there is one thing they are good at it's surviving, She can honestly help us! I won't lie to you, it's safer down here with you then it is up there with that Legate." Twilight shook her head her eyes low but a moment later she let out a sigh.

"Very well, you would know if a pony could survive all this, I need to contact The Legate, He was a professor at the Equis University of Religious studies. Never took his class but I did exchange words now and then."

"Huh, small galaxy, how did he end up on a farm ship?"

"How did I end up out here? The will of the Forerunners is hard to understand sometimes. Now what is this report from the _Sacred Inquisitor_?"

"Banshee that was running dark came in and a Demon popped out, without any security it was running rampant for a while. Broke out all the Humans then took a bunch of the stasis chambers, including the one with the sleeping Demon. And booked it out of there."

"Is Savo okay?"

"Yeah he gave me the report, Demon somehow had access to the whole ship, it was locking and unlocking doors at will apparently, knew exactly where to go and escaped on a Type-44 Phantom."

"Can't have taken more than three or four stais chambers in that case. The objective was purely the Demon and not to save the other sleeping humans." Rainbow shrugged and turned to look at the display before her.

"Well let's get back down to the crash site, looks like that Human convoy has moved off now so it should be safe down there."

* * *

"How many?" Twilight stood on the dry earth looking out over the vast expanse of dead, all of them lined up in rows as Zealots and Decans gave them the last rites.

"Four hundred and seventy six, we found roughly one hundred and sixty humans too." N'tho looked out over the bodies a great sorrow weighing heavily upon him. Twilight was standing next to a burnt and melted helmet, little else of Dosa remained.

"We outnumbered them three to one, we offered them surrender and a chance to repent." The unicorn mare turned away from the field of the dead. "No matter what this should not have happened."

"They had Demons, four of them." N'tho sighed and turned to walk with Twilight "They are walking far ahead of us on the Great Journey, no matter how it hurts we cannot waiver, we cannot mourn. We must celebrate the lives of our cherished brothers and sisters."

"I must have made a mistake somewhere. I was distracted." Twilight held her head low as the pair walked to the trio of Phantoms waiting for them.

"No, war is not something that we can dictate. Two great people march against each other, wit and strength and skill tested but when all else is certain it is pure luck and fate that decide the victor."

"Not the Forerunners? I am sure a great many people would disagree with you N'tho" The Major shrugged.

"Would the gods hold our hand like a mother does her firstborn? No, we are here to find our own way, I am certain that we are no more deserving of victory then the Humans." Twilight looked at the man standing beside her with an eyebrow raised.

"You think very highly of them."

"I do, it has been a long path but the heretics are cunning and deadly and are more than the base creatures they are accused of being. I fully support the world the Equestrians created, _Repentance. _No son should find his feet clasped in lead for the sins of his father." Twilight looked out at the ring that stole her breath with every glance and prayed for the fallen, all of the fallen.

* * *

"You look older and wiser every time we speak Minister of Etiology, or should I say Legate" Twilight bowed her head in respect.

"Ah Twilight my child, you flatter me, I must confess I was dearly looking forward to speaking to you again. It has been far too long, look at how you have grown."

"I apologize that we have not had a chance to simply speak."

"There is nothing at all to apologize for, we all have a great many tasks to complete, now let us dispense with the pleasantries. You have something to ask of me." Twilight smiled warmly.

"Wise and perceptive as always. I do have a request, one of your charges on the _Infinite Succor, _an Equestrian colonist with a private education in ethology. I would like to requisition her service."

"I think I know the one, polite and not a single sanction to her name. A very talented worker, I would be eager to offer her services to you Twilight but I am afraid I cannot secure transport for her."

"I can send a ship to collect her, it would not strain my resources at all."

"Then I shall make her aware of her requisition and the shift in duties, now we must catch up at some point my dear child, perhaps once we have eliminated the humans we can walk upon the ring together."

"I shall look forward to it Legate." Twilight cut the communication and turned to Rainbow Dash. "You will have to pick her up while I go to the _Sacred Inquisitor_. It's a long flight over to the gas giant."

"Thank you Twilight this means a lot to me."

"Gilda, make sure my pilot makes it back to me. Keep her safe." Her honour guard champion bowed her head and moved to catch up with Rainbow Dash while Twilight, Jacob, Tath, N'tho and the surviving ten members of her honour guard entered a dropship heading towards the _Sacred Inquisitor._


	11. Chapter Ten

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Ten

September 20th 2552

The Sacred Inquisitor's hanger bay was a mess, wreckage had been pushed to the walls and a token effort had been made to clean the dull cyan bloodstains that coated the floor in horrid patches, a grim reminder of the events that transpired. Twilight trotted forward with Keyes and her ten remaining griffon guard making her way directly to the bridge.

"Looks like you had a guest while we were away." Jacob lengthened his stride to keep up with Twilights rapid gate.

"Nothing you need to worry about, just stay close to my guard" Twilight glanced around at the Covenant crewmen stealing glances at the Inquisitor and the human walking in her wake.

Eventually the group made it to the meeting rooms were Twilight was to speak to Savo. Leaving keyes and her guard outside Twilight trotted into the room to find the form of Savo 'Sralcamee hunched over a holographic projection. The door closed with a hiss.

"Inquisitor... Twilight, there has been a tragedy." Savo turned away from the projection and threw himself into a chair to brood openly, cocking her head in confusion Twilight made her way over to the projection to see what Savo was referring too.

It was a recording taken from the holding cells she had placed Halsey inside to keep her away from the other humans. Two shimmering forms of cloaked Sangheili guards paced around the long room room on a wide patrol, It was protocol to maintain a cloak when guarding prisoners but to maintain it for hours the system would be set to low complexity mode. Each patrol would bring them together close to the control panel at the far end of the room.

Twilight watched the recording passively until the unthinkable happened, without warning one of the cloaked Sangheili ignited his energy sword and plunged the deadly blade into his fellow guard. The active camouflage failed for both of them and she watched as the murderous Sangheili simply pushed his fellow off of his blade and turned towards the control panel as the mortally wounded prison warden clutched at the wound convulsing on the floor.

The shields that comprised the cell doors powered down and Doctor Halsey walked out with an odd calmness and spoke to the murderer, a moment later the door at the end of the hall opened and the unmistakable figure of a Demon in dark brown armour entered the room its weapon held casually as Halsey and the murderer turned to speak to it.

As casually as one would swat a fly the Demon lifted its rifle and shot the mortally wounded Sanghili and the trio turned to jog from the room.

"This is unbelievable." Twilight turned to look at Savo, the shipmaster had his face buried in his hands as he sat still. "Who was that traitor?!"

"A dead man. I contacted N'tho and requested he search for Zasze 'Rasumee and I was sent a picture of his corpse. He died fighting the Humans at the Pillar of Autumn at your command, whoever this is they are an imposter."

"Major Dash told me that the Demon had access to the ships systems and knew exactly where to go" Savo nodded.

"At first I considered that one of the abominable constructs the Humans use was to blame for the Demon bypassing our security, but to think that one of my kind would betray the Covenant in such a manor, to deprive you and I of our honour! To have a brother turn and thrust a blade into your belly!" Savo clicked his mandibles in despair.

"There could be more traitors, what can we do about it?" Twilight looked Savo in the eyes as the Shipmaster regarded her.

"You must leave this ship, it is not safe to keep you here when I cannot trust my own crew, I tracked the Phantom to a forerunner facility on the ring. The traitor and the Humans have chosen to stay far away from the other humans on Halo for unknown reasons. However this provides us with an opportunity." Savo stood and moved over to the holographic projector. "There is a Special Operations force currently engaging in reclamation activities close to the facility the traitor and the humans landed. This Special Operation force is led by Usze 'Tahamee, an old friend of mine, recently they requested additional supplies."

"Can this Usze 'Tahamee be trusted?"

"Absolutely, he graduated with Thel 'Vadamee at the collage of war on Sanghelios. I have prepared a ship to carry supplies to the Special Operation force, you will go there with your honour guard and N'tho and from there you can requisition transport and the Special Operation forces present to find and eliminate the Demon and the traitor, we can then recover the Human command crew and the sleeping Demon and salvage our honour."

"You want me to requisition a Special Operation force? I should go speak to the Supreme Commander before I do something like that." Twilight looked over the manifest displayed before her and made note of the excessive number of Plasma Capacitor units requisitioned by the force.

"That would be unnecessary, the fleet is currently unaware of the Demon attack on this ship. While you are on the ring I will conduct a sweep of my personnel to find and remaining traitors"

"I don't know about this Savo, what if other ships have traitors?"

"Trust me on this Twilight, I will sweep this ship of traitors and then I will investigate the _Penance_ too and speak to Figa 'Nrazumee on this, if knowledge of traitors becomes known within the fleet it would start a panic that could not be quelled, brother must trust brother here Twilight we are in a precarious situation." Twilight nodded with a sharp sigh.

"Very well, I will deal with the Demons, you are right knowledge of this betrayal is dangerous." Twilight left the room shortly thereafter Keyes and her guard falling into step beside her as she made her way to the hanger to find this supply ship Savo had prepared.

* * *

CHECKING FILE SYSTEMS...  
DONE...  
CHECKING SECURITY : STATD  
ENCRYPTION CODE : BLACK  
SUBMIT SECURITY CREDENTIALS:  
SPARTAN-B312

IDENTITY CONFIRMED...

ACCESS GRANTED

TARGET PROFILE:  
TWILIGHT SPARKLE, INQUISITOR, COVENANT  
Inquisitor to the Combined Fleet of Righteous Purpose, Inquisitor to the Fleet of Particular Justice, Inquisitor to the Fleet of Profound Solitude, Inquisitor to the Fleet of Tranquil Composure, Inquisitor to the Fleet of Inner Knowledge, Inquisitor to the Legion, Sister of the Grand Inquisition, Noble of House Midnight, Student to the Resplendent Crown of the Undaunted Sun, Student at the Equestrian Academy of Natural Sciences, Student at the Equestrian Academy of Religious Studies, Student at the Equestrian Academy of Gifted Unicorns, Accredited Master of Sorcery.

TARGET VALUE: ALPHA

REPORT COMPILED BY: LT. COMMANDER JAMESON LOCKE

Pursuant to Office of ONI Retrieval and Acquisitions inquiry of 22 September, 2551, the following is a target profile of Inquisitor Twilight Sparkle compiled by Lieutenant Commander Locke. Report supplemented by documents provided by ENIGMA **(See attached file)**.

Height: 4'7 (excluding horn)  
Weight: 274 kg  
Age: 23 (Earth standard?)  
Appearance: Resembles purple a terrestrial pony with a mythical Unicorn horn.  
Note: ENIGMA has demonstrated strange supernatural abilities it refers to as magic **(See attached file)** and has assured us that Twilight Sparkle demonstrates such abilities also.

First confirmed by alien entity calling itself ENIGMA Twilight Sparkle has been a unique element within the enigmatic Covenant as a wartime investigator and civilian leadership figure. Twilight Sparkle appears to be the mastermind behind the grand deception regarding the treatment of Humanity at the hands of the Covenant. While Humanity is regarded as a heretical species all reports of battle indicate that Human civilian elements are being relocated to a prison planet. ENIGMA has informed us that what civilian elements survive to reach the prison planet are quietly and discreetly disposed of.

The following is from an interview with ENIGMA conducted by Commander Serin Osman

January 3rd 2551:

"Who are we talking about today little ape?"

"Twilight Sparkle, from report forty six."

"Celestia's **(See attached file)** insipid little sycophant? Twilight comes from a very respectable and noble family dating back thousands of years. Purported descendants of the great Unicorns **(See attached file)** that built the white city on the mountain, lies of course. The Midnight Family was started by a thug mercenary that made a name and fortune hunting down Sangheili **(See attached file)** and Kig Yar **(See attached file)** Pirates in the early days of space exploration."

"Before Equestria **(See attached file)** joined the Covenant?"

"Roughly a hundred or so years before Equestria joined. Midnight Spear, she was a colonist that started destroying Covenant ships in a converted commercial freighter, ended up leading a fleet of six hundred ships, dwarfing the Equestrian Royal fleet. To bring her into the fold Luna **(See attached file)** commissioned the mare as an Admiral and gave her a noble bloodline and some princeling husband."

"Back to Twilight Sparkle."

"Ah yes, Twilight is an excellent practitioner of magic and a fervent academic, the little worm is a genius and utterly devoted to Celestia."

"Not the Covenant?"

"Oh she is an utter zealot, indoctrinated into the Great Journey **(See attached file)** at a young age and any time she does not spend studying she spends praying and debating religious interpretation. Of course when Celestia needed dirt on the Covenant military Twilight was the only mare the Prophet **(See attached file)** Councilor's would allow unrestricted access to the fleet records, so she becomes the youngest Inquisitor in history and rushes around the front lines of the war. Not even my considerably skilled agents are able to get close to her, they might have a better chance if they approached from the human front"

"Incorporation of **(REDACTED)** elements into the ONI is pending, you know that."

"Of course, in anycase Twilight is a powerful and influential figure and likely the most important mare alive right now even if she does not know it. Celestia genuinely loves the pathetic little thing like the daughter she never had. If you want to destabilize the Covenant then killing Twilight slowly and painfully and making sure video footage and a corpse is sent to Celestia is the way to go."

"Would that not simply galvanize a largely disinterested civilian element of the Covenant against Humanity?"

"The Covenant is what you would call a house of cards. The Sangheili don't trust the Equestrians and the Prophets don't trust the Sangheili or the Equestrians and the Equestrians don't trust the Prophets or the Sangheili. You kill Twilight and Celestia is going to burn like the sun itself and build the biggest fleet she possibly can before smashing it into Humanity. Of course the Sangheili and the Prophets won't allow this and would get in her way, suddenly you have a nice little civil war to take pressure off of you lovable apes."

"Sounds more like a gambit then a plan."

"Oh my dear sweet little Serin, you don't win a war without taking a few risks."

Interview Ends.

In the opinion of this investigator, Twilight Sparkle is one of the most valuable assets on the field. Not only does she provide an opportunity to gather an incredible amount of intelligence but she can be used as a potent bargaining chip against one of the most powerful elements of the Covenant.

The plan proposed by ENIGMA is deeply immoral, risky and uncertain to have the desired effect. Not to mention the questionable loyalties of ENIGMA. However ENIGMA is right about one thing, the capture or elimination of Twilight Sparkle is vital to ending the war, one way or another.

TARGET PROFILE END...

LOGGING OUT...

Amanda blinked as the report ended and turned to regard Doctor Cathrine Halsey looking impatiently at her.

"Well, did you learn anything?" Halsey crossed her arms tapping her foot on the transparent metal floor.

"Yes, quite a bit." Amanda turned to pick up the rifle she had left leaning against the cryopod and checked how many bullets she had left.

"Then tell me who is this Twilight Sparkle." Halsey let out an exasperated sigh as the Spartan did not even glance at her.

"My next target." Amanda punctuated her words by chambering her rifle and stepping forward into the darkness.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Eleven

September 20th 2552

Rainbow Dash burped and tossed a used food nipple into the recycler. Unlike Equestrian rations the food nipples all shared a greasy milky flavor no matter the ingredients, unless you acquired an Unggoy food nipple by mistake. Infusions were extraordinarily potent something Dash had the misfortune to experience, the mantra 'never again' at the forefront of her mind as she relived the memory.

She had plenty of time over the years to reflect upon memories, it seemed that things were always happening planetside but in the cold quiet of space days and weeks blurred together. Dash pulled herself to her hooves and left the pilot cabin entering the dropships main hold spotting the curled up catlike figure of Gilda snoring softly.

"Hay G." Dash slumped against one of the walls with a sigh. "It's been awhile since we could just talk you know?" Her words were met with snores but she continued anyway. "Its crazy how quickly time flies, I remember when I first came to the war academy and you were forced to share a room with me, back when we were kids. Even when there are other people around, I am always thinking of stuff like that, I don't know why. When I signed up and actually passed muster it was crazy, one in a million and all that. Seems like I joined just to shuttle Twilight about, they give us runes and enchantments, arcane infusions." She let out a long sigh. "I am going to outlive most ponies and what am I doing with the time? I don't even know, why are we even here? Why am I here?"

"You think too much" Gilda stretched out pressing her forelimbs forward and shaking slightly before collecting herself and lumbering towards Dash. "We just keep going one day at a time. That is what a warrior does, one day your people will need you." Almost casually Gilda picked up the small pony and curled up again hugging the mare as she closed her eyes. "That also means that you sleep when you get the chance. So you are well rested when they need you."

Dash wiggled a bit to get comfortable before setting a five hour alarm, it would take six to reach the _Infinite Succor. _With the soft purring of her lifelong friend sleep took her rapidly.

* * *

A gaggle of captive Unggoy shuffled forward to unhook the bindings over Gabby's form overseen by the weary human shock troopers who kept weapons trained on the prone Griffon. The bindings covering her, some kind of sticky plastic wraps that pinned her armoured wings to her back and her legs together, were left in place forcing the Unggoy to pick up the Griffon and carry her to whatever the humans had in store.

Gabby tried to ignore the wobbling and quiet apologies of the poor sods forced to carry her and took in the area around her, the human dropship she had been taken in had landed in a heavily fortified Forerunner structure, or structures she supposed. Downspin there was a large beacon structure, the kind that had been reported all over the ring and would fire light blue pulses periodically into the sky for some unknown reason. Several anti air turrets had been placed in strategic places on the structure and she could even see a wing of banshees on a flat space overlooking a cliffside.

A series of strange walls in odd geometric shapes extended in a semicircle overlooking the cliffside for several kilometers before reaching the upspin structure. Gaps in the walls had been filled with dull grey sacks likely filled with dirt, where the humans had gotten the material for that she had no upsin structure was a squat building with a flat roof, dozens of Covenant and Human anti air systems were in place as well as obvious signal jammers to prevent orbiting ships from eavesdropping.

Dropships both Human and Covenant where busy shuttling up the large human convoy that had won the battle at the crash site. Gabby begin to count human assets, Eleven tanks, thirty six scout cars, nine human dropships, two very big dropships, five small gunships. Covenant equipment was dotted about too with dozens of scouts and a few mortar tanks. Next Gabby carefully looked at the personel, her eyes darting about as she rapidly calculated what she could see. Roughly seventy of the green clothes Humans, another fifty with the black clothes and hundreds in the thicker full body non combat clothes of service personnel.

While wobbling about Gabby carefully ran her razor sharp beak across the black plastic straps tying her forelimbs together, not enough to break them but enough that she felt the bonds tense and felt confident enough that she could snap the bindings should desire to. She just needed a good opportunity, Her clock and shields were still active in her suit and while her weapons had been taken the Humans had left the silver chain holding her runestones hanging from her breast, no doubt the primates did not understand the power on the little black stone disks and had dismissed them as decorative.

An odd and fatal mistake to make Gabby mused as she watched the sky turn brilliant pink and orange.

* * *

"You are to return to Alpha base and coordinate with marine reinforcements before attacking this 'Control Room' Cortana, that is an order!" Antonio Silva considered himself a reasonable man but dealing with an insubordinate AI of all things was testing him considerably.

"_Negative Major, judging from the assets reported on the Covenant battle net Blue Team is more than sufficient to secure the Control Room, any additional forces would only put lives at risk uselessly. I will report back when the Control Room is secure."_

"This is insubordination Cortana! Let me speak to Spartian one one seven! Now!"

"_That won't be necessary, if you want to send support please deploy red team to the following coordinates. Marine or ODST reinforcements are unnecessary. Cortana out." _Silva threw the radio across the room to crash against the odd metal wall of his makeshift office.

"Fuck, Fuck!" Wellsley watched impassively as the Major calmly walked across the room after his outburst to recover the radio and put it carefully onto his desk, the robust equipment no worse for its trip across the room.

"McKay has returned from the raid Major, the Covenant did not attack the convoy and chose to shadow it instead. I predict that this is a prelude to a concerted attack." Silva settled down at his desk and turned to regard the AI. Despite the low resolution holographic display the AI's chosen form was impeccable a straight backed stern looking man in an ancient british naval officers uniform. As far as Silva was concerned Wellsley was simply an eccentric human.

"Is Cortana Rampant? What the hell is she thinking Wellsley?" The intelligence in question let out the digital equivalent of a sigh and paused before responding, of course the time it took for him to decide on a reply was so rapid that the good Major did not notice any such pause.

"Cortana is loyal to humanity Major. There is no question of that, she is however protective of her charges."

"The child soldier freaks? You think she gives a shit about them? If she cared at all they would be taken to earth for therapy and retirement not used like a damn warhead."

"We are in a bad situation Antonio we need every soldier we can get." The man waved a hand dismissively at the little holographic projection on his desk.

"You know how we took this butte, nine of the bastards running about and not one of them was necessary to take this site! All we needed was good men with nerves of steel. People green to the core!"

"Red and Blue team have demonstrated incredible fighting prowess Major, we cannot discount the value of such assets"

"Assets, good god man they are mentally damaged, anyone would be if they were one of them. And we can! We can when said assets are being sent on unsanctioned missions Wellsley, where the fuck did red five go?"

"I don't know, she cut me out of her systems after an unregistered armour modification became active. I suspect that she somehow received orders from an unknown actor." There was a pause as the Major unwrapped an energy bar.

"You said her report was scrubbed?"

"It was mostly black ink."

"So we have five toy soldiers running about outside the chain of command, when are the others going to wander off?"

"They are currently waiting for a debriefing. I know you are eager to investigate this weapons cash personally but I would however recommend we investigate one of the captives recovered from the raid first."

"Why? He important."

"It's a new kind of alien. Equipment is technologically distinct from the other Covenant and she is currently singing 'The Army Goes Rolling Along' in perfect english." Antonio turned to look at Wellsley with a deep and sincere frown upon his face.

"'The Army Goes Rolling Along'?"

"It's a twentieth century song used by the United Sta-"

"I know the fucking song how does some alien know it?"

"Well that would be a good question to ask her Major."

"Get McKay to debrief the Spartians, she will assume command while I am away."Silva finished the energy bar and collected his sidearm before he left his office, things had been strange since the moment they landed on this ring.

* * *

As her hooves touched the landing platform a horrid repugnant humidity and clawing heat took the opportunity to strike Twilight so suddenly that the mare had to take a few shocked sharp breaths before turning towards a group of Unggoy in hermetically sealed special operations combat harnesses.

"Inquisitor Twilight Sparkle, you did not announce your arrival. How can this humble unit serve you?" The lead Unggoy stepped forward to greet Twilight as the mare made her way to the edge of the platform to get out of the way of the supplies being unloaded.

"I am looking to speak with Usze 'Tahamee, he is currently in command of this reclamation expedition." The Unggoy paused before responding.

"I am afraid that Usze is currently unavailable your Excellency, I must offer you sincere apologies on his behalf. If I may inquire as to the nature of your unexpected but most welcome visit?" Twilight frowned and nodded a head to the power cells being unloaded.

"Why does this expedition require so much power? You have requisitioned enough cells to fire ten plasma pistols continuously for a week." Twilight turned away from the Unggoy and looked out, the sky was obscured by a thick layer of dark green plantlife and the ground was a spongy wet mass of thin gripping roots and fungus were it was not submerged entirely. A thin layer of sickly brown water had somehow managed to coat the purple mare even after just moments spent on a raised 'dry' platform.

"I am afraid that I am simply here to ensure the supplies are present and stockpiled your Excellency I do not concern myself with questions over my station. My charge however, his most competent excellency Zuka 'Zamamee is of an equal standing to Usze 'Tahamee in regards to forces under his command." The Unggoy moved to stand next to Twilight collecting himself and standing straighter than was expected of his kind, he was a full head and shoulders taller than the Unicorn.

"You are presumptuous, what makes you think I would want to share anything with your charge?" Twilight turned to the Unggoy an eyebrow raised as she looked into the reflective plates covering his eyes.

"Because your Excellency, you came here unannounced and have made only a token investigation into the activity here, meaning this place is not in your interest. However you wish to speak to Usze, a well respected and competent special operations commando." The Unggoy paused to gage the Unicorns reaction before he continued. "You want to conscript him for an operation elsewhere, likely involving humans."

"What forces can your 'Zamamee offer me?" Twilight asked the curiously well spoken Unggoy.

"Myself, five other Unggoy, four Kig Yar and two other Sanghili and a pair of bonded Mgalekgolo. We also have access to appropriate transport for this terrain."

"You said that 'Zamamee was of equal standing to 'Tahamee?" The Unggoy looked away from Twilight.

"I did, there was an... Accident, several reclamation parties have been wounded and are unfit for any mission you have in mind" The Unggoy looked back to Twilight who let out a sigh.

"Very well, I will warn you however. I intend on taking you on a Demon hunt." To her surprise the Unggoy did not even flinch, instead he nodded.

"Then it shall be easy for you to convince Zuka to lend you his strength your Excellency, he bears a terrible grudge against the Demons." Twilight cocked her head.

"You are not afraid to fight a Demon?"

"Anything is better than this place." The Unggoy's head snapped to Twilight as he spoke as if shocked at his own words.

"Is it that bad? I would have thought an Unggoy would be pleased to get away from combat duties." There was a long pause as the Unggoy carefully thought about his response.

"Idle feet lead us astray on the great journey, I simply... restless here and our presence is largely unnecessary anyway." Twilight nodded at the mans wise words and offered a hoof.

"Your name?" Twilight felt the strength of the Unggoy as he clasped her leg, surprisingly well versed in Equestrian custom.

"Yayap your Excellency." The man in question bowed his head in respect.

"It's nice to meet you Yayap, let's go meet your charge." Twilight nodded to N'tho who was standing at the other end of the platform next to the gravity lift. He turned and went back inside the dropship to collect the Griffon's and Human

* * *

Gabby had been placed in a large alcove with a covenant energy shield blocking her exit, there was also a human scout vehicle with its rear mounted weapon pointed at her at all times. Her shield and cloak systems while still on her person relied upon a specific type of conventional power cell, something that had been taken out by the Humans. However her armour still bore runes and enchantments woven carefully into the plates of her harness that had gone ignored or unnoticed by the humans, she still had her black runestones on a chain around her leg.

They had taken here to a different place to the other Covenant prisoners. For what reason she had no idea but it made any escape plans more complex.

"Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.~" Gabby sang out for the five Humans watching her warily, they had stopped shouting at her to stop making noise half an hour ago.

"Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.~" Gabby was a fast learner with an impeccable memory, she took a great deal of pride in that fact. She had spent the last four years around Twilight Sparkle as the mad little mare studied humans constantly, picking up the language while her comrades only understood grunts and squeaks was simple for her, perhaps she simply had an ear for it.

"And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag- 'You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me!'~" The last line of the chorus was joined by a masculine voice. Looking for its owner Gabby saw a Human in green armour stride forward with a rifle over one shoulder.

"Hi! I have been trying to get this boring lot to sing for ages." Gabby smiled at the newcomer as he strode right up to the glowing forcefield.

"You big bastards shot down a dropship containing friends of theirs. Lets just say you aint the most popular chicken in the henhouse."

"All is fair in love and war~" Gabby glanced at the black armoured figures who were watching her with stony faces and winked.

"You know an awful lot about Human culture for a big ugly bird you know that?" Gabby gasped in mock offense and clasped her taloned arms over her chest standing on her hindlegs.

"You don't actually mean that do you? You don't think I am ugly Sargent Johnson?" The man blinked at her in confusion for a moment before rolling his eyes as he remembered the dog tag around his neck.

"So you can read too? Impressive eyesight, how about you tell me were you lot have Captain Keyes and we can go and sing a little song together."

"Deactivate the forcefield and I will whisper it into your ear" Gabby wiggled her eyebrows at the man before her as he lit a cigar.

"If that forcefield gets deactivated you won't like what happens I can promise you that." Johnson replied with the cigar between his teeth slightly slurring the words.

"Ah ah ah." Gabby waved a single talon at the man before smiling. "Prisoners of War must be treated humanely in all circumstances. They are protected against any act of violence, as well as against intimidation, insults, and public curiosity." Johnson let out a dry laugh as she spoke.

"What is that the Geneva Convention? Since when is the Covenant a signatory?"

"The Conventions apply to a signatory nation even if the opposing nation is not a signatory, but only if the opposing nation accepts and applies the provisions of the Conventions." Gabby replied in a singsong tone before sticking her tongue out at the Sargent.

"The Covenant don't abide by the standards of the Geneva Convention" Johnson's voice took a dark tone as he stepped forward and let out a puff of dense smoke.

"Oh dear did someone's pet corporal get eaten by a Kig Yar?" Gabby let out an exaggerated sigh and shook her head. "I suppose if I was a member of the Covenant I would be in big trouble from the angry little Humans."

"If you were a member?"

"Yup never joined, not the religious type. Technically I am not even a citizen of Equestria ether, my Government have no official connections with the Covenant at all, of course that is because the last _Griffon_ King died like eight hundred years ago and no one has been able to take the throne without turning to ash and we are like 'regency council? Who needs that nonsense!' and just kept going wi-"

"Are you telling me." Johnson cut the Griffon off mid ramble "That you are not a part of the Covenant? Why the hell are you fighting with them?" Gabby smiled and leaned against the forcefield.

"That is a long story that involves the location of your dear Captain Jacob Keyes... But I am not telling."

"What do yo-"

"Up to mighty London came an Irish man one day~" The Sargent swore as Gabby started to sing again and turned to stalk away from the crazy alien as the familiar form of Major Silva entered the motor pool.

"Sargent, you spoke with the... Singing alien?" Antonio frowned as the massive alien stood on her hindlegs and filled the room with her voice.

"Yeah, it's a weird one, claims it is not part of the Covenant but won't explain why its fighting with them." Silva shook his head.

"Get your squads ready Sargent and wait in the pelican, we will investigate that Covenant weapons cache when I am finished speaking with this thing." The Sargent frowned and turned back towards the major.

"We aint taking red team?"

"No, I want them here in case of a Covenant attack. It will just be me, you and your marines. If intel is accurate that is going to be more than enough." Johnson looked like he wanted to argue but thought better of it and nodded his head.

"Yes sir." He turned and made his way out of the motor pool.

"It's a long way to goooo!~" Silva looked over the alien, dozens of strips of duct tape littered the ground of her little makeshift cell it looked like she had taken great pains to remove the strips from her armour.

"If she keeps singing shove a grenade though the food slot" The Major spoke casually as he strode towards the giant bird that turned its entire head to the side to regard the newcomer.

"Major Antonio Silva." Gabby moved her head back to a normal angle after reading the tags on the man. "Are you in charge? Or is there a General or something around here?"

"Where is Captain Jacob Keyes?"

"Now why would I tell you that?" Gabby smiled down at Antonio drumming her talons across the face of the energy shield keeping her contained with a horrible hissing sound.

"Because until you tell me what I want to know you won't be getting any food."

"Oh but that is the crazy thing Major." Gabby began to put pressure upon the shield holding her causing the entire watery field to turn a bright shimmering pink. "I am surrounded by food." Her tone was dark and threatening, the ODST around the Major all pulled up rifles and pointed them at the straining shield and unreasonably large predatory bird before them. "But If you want to try to starve me good luck."

"Let me tell you something." Silva walked forward until he was standing right next to the energy shield, gabby moved her head to be level with the man as the pair stared at each other just inches away. "When we beat you alien bastards, and we will. You will suffer every indignity, every lost life, every burned planet a millionfold. When we beat your armies back, when we blow up your damn ships and when we gain control of this ring you will beg for mercy that you denied us." With that the Major turned and strode away from the captive Griffon and the sun set upon Halo.

* * *

"Warning! Proximity to containment facilities is forbidden by order of the Ecumene council. Please cease all activity within quarantine zones immediately. I must insist that you cease all activities. this ring contains significant dangers that you do not comprehend."

"Oh dear."

"Deploying containment breach countermeasures."


	13. Chapter Twelve

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Twelve

September 21st 2552

"Discharge level nominal, light heat bleed at four point zero zero two percent. Roughly two hundred and forty watts." James glanced over at the ornate alien weapon before him as the long barrel began to glow again. Its breach was open and there was no ammunition inside of it, a plastic zip tie kept the long thin trigger activated.

"On time discharge in two, one." With a crack the weapon ceased to glow and a stump of wood collected from the sparse forest on the butte set up at the other end of the room exploded.

"Resolving, six thousand fifty one jules. Discharge level nominal, light heat bleed at four point zero zero three one percent." The woman across from him shook her head in disbelief.

"Where the hell is this coming from? Six kilowatts every five seconds for three hours and we only lose three percent efficiency. Not to mention the rate of efficiency loss is all over the place!" James shrugged as the weapon discharged again.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic Kat, no idea what to tell you."

"It has no power source, even the metal is dead on the scanner!" Kat pulled herself to her feet and walked over to get a closer look at the weapon. At first glance it seemed to simply be an overly ornate bolt action rifle, sized for the massive griffon aliens. Green, red and shimmering silver metals were inlayed into dazzling patterns merging seamlessly into a cherry red wooden stock. However the thing could fire even without being loaded, the power behind the invisible force the weapon discharged was immense. Just under one fourth the energy of an Anti-Materiel rifle round.

"It could have a generator we are not recognising, the symbols light up when it's about to fire right?"

"The little glowing lights are producing what? twelve thousand kilowatts? And still going?"

"Well closer to fourteen thousand but not only that but we don't understand how to change fire modes or how to make it discharge the energy that took down the Covenant gunboats. That was significantly more than six kay. More like what, one hundred thousand?"

"Depends how the energy is applied, We have no way of telling considering we can't even detect a projectile. It was also several kilometers away, all we have here is a glowing front and backsight, no rail for magnification. Yeah you would need good helmet magnification to hit the shots they were making, they could use the armour to operate the weapon?"

"This is the first time we are encountering this style of tech, this makes covie shit look like sticks and stones." James ran his hands over his head scratching a bandage. The brilliant white material starkly contrasted with his dark skin, once smooth and handsome after a near miss from a plasma pistol he now suffered a horrible blistered mess for a face, his right ear had been flash burned away leaving a melted lump that rang horribly until a medic had torn out what little remained of his eardrum. "Damn, if that thing is telling the truth and it aint Covenant? What does this mean? We got another enemy alien empire out there?" Kat shrugged her prosthetic arm holding a metal canteen, they had all lost bits and pieces James supposed.

"Might be the ones that made this ring? They only show up when we get here and they are using technology entirely distinct from the Covenant. Covenant are religious fanatics, they might worship the birds." The Spartan slumped back down in her chair.

"Then why are we only seeing a few of them? Why make a ringworld if you are not going to live on it? And the shield system it had used a Covenant power source."

"Who knows." They sat quietly for a while, simply watching the weapon discharge every five seconds, growing negligibly more inefficient with each shot. At this rate the weapon could fire continuously for weeks and still produce a lethal, undetectable projectile.

"That alien knows." James surprised himself, the thought sneaking up on him and escaping before he could think through the implications. Of course the spartan across from him was nodding.

"She does, let's have a chat with her." James suppressed a groan and got up rubbing his back and bouncing softly on the balls of his feet to get circulation going again.

"Fine let's go see the big bird."

* * *

The rain was warm as it pitter pattered across the transport craft as it hovered just over the rippling muddy swamp on the way to the last known site of Halsey and the demon rescuer. The twin transports were somewhat overloaded, with several Unggoy, Kig Yar, Twilight and Jacob standing atop the crafts as they raced over the unpredictable terrain.

The pair stood in silence, now and then Jacob would steal glances at the dour mare but whatever thoughts he had were kept to himself, the pair of them did not have the right attire for the environment and both were wet and miserable.

The transports arrived at a grand and well lit opening, descending into the ground, despite the forerunner structure being below the level of the muddy pools of stagnant swamp water the structure itself was dry and as the transports entered the structure it felt dry and cool compared to the oppressive heat of the swamp.

The two transports disgorged the occupants as Twilight hopped down onto the ground and resisted the urge to shake herself dry.

"No dropship outside." Zuka 'Zamamee clambered from the drivers seat of one of the transports and loped towards Twilight "Could we have missed the Demon?"

"Unless they hid the craft, it would be irresponsible not to investigate this installation regardless." Twilight turned looking deeper into the structure, there was a large room with an elevator in the middle, with nowhere else to go she simply trotted forward as the Griffon's and Special Operation team darted forward weapons at the ready. Jacob at her right and Zuka on her left.

"It is foolish to take the Human with you, he is a very valuable prisoner." Twilight nodded.

"Far too valuable to let into the hands of the irresponsible Prophet of Stewardship, you told me yourself that he dismissed the danger of the Demons" Zuka looked at her with an odd expression as he stepped onto the elevator.

"Yes, I suppose you have a point, even after the Demon team raided the _Truth and Reconciliation _the Prophet chose to banish me to this dreadful reclamation duty rather then allow me to hunt them." As the large party all stepped onto the platform Twilight lit her horn and activated the lift, there was a lurch as the ancient magnetic locks around the edge of the lift platform disengaged and the entire transparent lift rose upwards before rapidly beginning its decent.

The large group found itself in a large room with a single door leading deeper into the facility, several discarded food nipples and biological waste had been left in the corner of the large room causing the entire room to have a repugnantly rank smell. Twilight ignored the mumbled comments at the expense of the humans and made her way to the door, it slid open as she approached and her griffons and the special operations team hurried through to clear the room for her.

After a moment one of her griffons nodded her though with Jacob and Twilight could finally hurry out of the waste room. Into a scene of utter horror. The room was long and had twelve metal slabs with holographic displays over them lining one of the walls, on the other wall was a ramp leading to a raised platform with a glass floor. Three empty human stasis chambers had been put up against the door on the other side of the room to make a makeshift barricade but something had thrown them aside. There were plasma scoring on all of the walls and hundreds of human ammunition casings littered the ground.

Three of the slabs were occupied with naked dead humans, neat incisions had been made to them indicating a horrific surgury had taken place with blood coating the ground and several disguarded organs left on the ground. Several other bodies were in the room, Twilight recognised the red haired human from the command crew she had captured. Her face was locked in an expression of utter horror and her remaining arm clutched a plasma pistol that had melted from overuse, her body was badly mangled. Another Human lay crushed under one of the stasis chambers but it was the mangled figure in the middle of the room that drew the most attention.

It had four legs and was vaguely equine but its body was covered in a crushed and cracked greenish black segmented exoskeleton that oozed a purplish grey fluid. Its face had a pair of prominent fangs and blueish insectoid eyes.

"Friend of yours?" Jacob was pale as he looked about the room.

"I have never seen anything like it" Twilight responded looking around as she felt her stomach turn horribly but found herself unable to look away.

"What terrible thing could have caused this?" As if in response to Zuka's rhetorical question the room lit up with a dazzling golden light and a glowing blue orb appeared before them spinning in place as it looked about the room before settling in on Twilight.

"An unregistered sentient lifeform?! Oh how exciting! It is an absolute pleasure to meet you welcome to installation zero four. Did you migrate to this galaxy recently or did your species engage in targeted evolution within the last one hundred and one thousand years?" The Oracle paused but continued the moment Twilight opened her mouth. "Oh how irresponsible of me, we cannot engage in pleasurable conversation when containment protocol is in effect! All local forces must form a joint emergency council immediately to coordinate forces in order to halt the spread of the flood!"

"The flood?" Twilight had time to ask before the Oracle continued turning away from her and looking closely at Jacob.

"I had hoped you would have a suitable geas or at least had the capacity to recover the index but you won't do at all, I'm afraid I will have to search for another subtable candidate to recover the index."

"Great Oricle, are you asking us to join forces with the humans? They are unprecedented sinners and heretics!" Zuka asked in shock and horror.

"Sin, Heresy? Whatever religious conflict has caused you to fight the Humans on this ring is utterly meaningless, containment protocol is very clear. Anyone who is considered a criminal is to be pardoned immediately in the event of a flood outbreak in order to aid in containment, this ruling from the Ecumene council supersedes any local or religious law." The glowing blue orb paused before turning away and lifting into the air and vanished in shimmering golden rings without another word.

"What the hell just happened" Jacob looked about in confusion as Twilight turned to regard him with wide eyes.

"The Oricle just absolved Humanity! T-this means the end of the war! So long as this flood is dealt with and the Humans aid in this matter then by the words of the Oricle itself any crime is washed away."

Zuka was about to speak when from the darkness of the barricaded door came a low horrific growling. The Griffons and Covenant rushed to find firing positions weapons trained on the door.

"It seems we will find out what the Oricle meant by 'the flood'" Zuka remarked.

* * *

The hanger of the _Infinite Succour_ was cramped with strange pipes and power conduits bulging out of the walls in odd places almost like the functionality of the room was an afterthought. Unggoy ran about doing the million little tasks a hanger demanded with a professionalism that would normally be uncharacteristic of the species. Rainbow trotted along doing her best to avoid getting in the way of the crewmen as they worked and spotted a light brown stallion waving at her from across the hanger, redubling her speed and hearing the long quiet strides of her griffon companion behind her Major Dash quickly made her way to the tired looking colt.

"Major Rainbow Dash?" His voice was pleasant enough for someone at that awkward time in life were a colt would become a stallion, his body was largely obscured by a dirty armoured worksuit with well worn tools hanging at his belt. If the Stallion had been born on Equis he would no doubt be agonising over what he wanted to do with his life between state mandated holidays across the paradise planet and virtual reality games. Here and now however he held himself with a confidence that only came from hard won experience.

"Reporting, here for a pickup." The stallion nodded and inclined his head towards the door as he turned, Rainbow followed him.

"Yeah you want to steal Shy right? Gunna mess up our shifts. What is a Lancer and a Knight doing out here anyway?" Dash glanced back at Gilda and then to the Stallion again.

"Stealing Shy apparently." Rainbow was led to an elevator that opened almost the moment the trio reached it forcing them to move to the sides of the corridor as a flood of Unggoy rushed out to meet some workshift. "You lot seem to be a bit overworked."

"Yeah it's been busy, even the bossmare is working overtime with so many of us down on the platform." He activated the elevator with a bright flash of greyish blue magic, having so much light bleed ment that he was very powerful or more likely, he had no magical education at all.

"Bossmare? What about the Legate?"

"Oh he is in command because of reclamation protocol, the ship is owned by an Equis Baroness and was captained by a Sanghili who died in a tragic accident just a few weeks ago."

"This Baroness is working?" Dash grinned at the stallion who snorted and shook his head.

"Its crazy but for a citizen she aint bad honestly. It's a good job, well was." The conversation that had flowed with ease ceased with that and the trio exited the elevator to a much cleaner and pleasant deck, there were no exposed conduits or odd protrusions on the walls. They walked down a quiet hall to one of the doors. "Well, this is where I drop you off, good luck in there." Rainbow watched the stallion hurry off to his workshift and turned to the door, with a quiet chime it opened as she trotted towards it.

The rank scent of cheap incense and intoxicants rolled out from the room like a fog causing Rainbow to question her choice to take off her helmet inside the ship. Sitting reclined on an ornate gravity throne was the withered form of a san'shyuum, his skull was triangular with thick hide like skin that hung loosely like the bright expensive looking robes and precious metal that adorned the wizened figure.

"Ah you must be Twilights Pilot, would you care to join me? Both of you, I can have a good platter delivered and I have quite the respect for Equestrian cuisine." Rainbow fixed the Legate with a stoic expression and trotted forward followed by Gilda.

"I have eaten sir, I am here to transport the crewman Fluttershy and I will be out of your way."

"You will at least join me in my sermon while you await the little mares arrival, she is finishing her final work shift before I turn her over to you."

"We will wait in our transport if that is the case sir, no need to bother you."

"Come now I insist that you join me, it's not everyday that you are offered a chance to pray at the side of a prophet."

"Thank you for the offer sir but it would be wasted on us."

"Oh I see, what a terrible burden it must be for Twilight to endure the presence of heathens, or worse _atheists_. Truly it is the most repulsive trait of your kind, this tolerance of the few of you ignorant enough to deny the clear truth of the Great Journey."

"I am sorry Twilight did not have time to attend your sermon sir, it must be very important for you."

"What a wretched little thing, I shall have to spare time to pray for Twilight's strength as she endures your repugnant presence"

"I am sure she would appreciate that sir."

"She would in fact, the mare is wise beyond her years, a true progany." The Legate sighed and relaxed once more into his chair as he took a long drag from some burning intoxicant Dash could not identify. "If she were a few decades older and walked the great journey in the body of a san'shyuum maiden she would make for the most coveted of wives." he exhaled slowly his eyes glazing over and Rainbow was suddenly very thankful for the loose robes covering his body. "Even as an Equestrian when she ascends beyond her unseemly youth it would be... a pleasure."

"Isn't unbound lust a sin you lecherous little thing?" Gilda's voice cut through the smokey air like a knife and caused the Legate to tense and coil in rage.

"How dare you speak to me like that! How dare you address me in such a way!" The chair bound prophet shook with fury as he gestured madly coughing as he shouted "I should have you flogged and beaten you insolent worm!" Rainbow looked back at Gilda to regard the static hen, even among griffons Gilda was large and predatory it was almost laughable for the old chair bound fool to threaten her but she did wish her old friend had waited until after they had Fluttershy.

"We will just be le-" Without warning there was a thundering clang that rippled through the ship sending loose food, drugs and furniture flying across the room. The Legate looked about in a panic and collected himself before the door opened with a chime and a scared looking pegasus barged in.

"It rammed us! Right into the hanger!" She had a neat uniform and a colonist merchant navy cap that looked several sizes too big for her covering a light blue body and very short pink mane.

"What rammed us? Take a breath and calm down." Rainbow addressed the mare as she pulled her helmet from the magnetic lock on her side and put it on twisting it to form an airtight seal.

"It was a dropship, a heavy lift platform tagged _Brilliant Gift._ It was heading towards us but did not request to dock and ignored our messages, it just crashed into the hanger!" The mare hoped from leg to let bouncing in place with a terrified look on her face. "What if it's humans! What if they want to kill us! the dropship did come from the ring!"

"We will go back to the bridge and report the incident to the Supreme Admiral, G you go and investigate the hanger, if its an accident let the Unggoy deal with it. If its humans go and disable the slipspace drive." Gilda nodded and shimmered in place for a moment before her cloak became active and she stalked out of the pleasure cabin utterly invisible.

"You can't order my crew about heathen!" The Legate screamed "I am in command here!" Rainbow turned towards the Legate.

"You are welcome to tag along sir but I would recommend against getting in my way. I can move very quickly and I would hate to make a mess of your lovely ship." Rainbow turned away and ushered the scared mare before her out and towards the control room, thankfully it was on the same deck as the Legate's dingy little pleasure room.

Following the panicking mare to the control room Rainbow found herself in a raised space with dozens of little alcoves below her with Unggoy or Equestrian crewmen manning stations. Before her was a great domed wall of transparent metal that looked out over the ship. Unlike a combat rated vessel the Mjern-pattern ship did not have its control room buried within the ship but rather had it overlooking the vessel. It was massive, great transparent domes dotted about its Kilometer and a half length with dense biomes to allow sport hunting or recreation. At the very front of the ship was a domed farming space for producing conventional fresh fruits and vegetables using traditional Equestrian techniques.

Deeper within the ship would be more intensive farms and tracks of hydroponics growing fungus and base vegetables to produce enough food to feed a fleet many times the size of what it was currently attached too. The ship would normally contain roughly two thousand crewmen, often Equestrian Colonists, with an additional seven thousand menial workers and tens of thousands of animals.

Dash turned away from the awe inspiring sight of the massive ship and towards the console several of the command crew were standing about looking afraid. Trotting forwards she shouted.

"Report! What is going on down there!" Several of the crewmen jumped and quickly backed away from the armoured lancer as she confidently trotted forward but the crewmen at the console turned to look at her, an Unggoy with a shaky voice he quickly filled her in.

"A dropship crashed into the main hanger, it hit a conduit and destroyed all the dropships in the hanger, including yours. It also knocked out the cameras but we still have audio from down there." He leaned forward and began tapping at the holographic console activating a recording.

Screeching of metal and fire as well as hissing no doubt from damaged conduits, then the shouting of Unggoy emergency teams as they tried to fight the fires and save the wounded. Then it started, the distinctive crack of human weapons fire and the screams of fleeing Unggoy and Ponies. Rainbow waved a hoof and shook her head.

"Cut it off, send that sample in a package to the _Seeker of Truth, _tell them humans have boarded the ship and we need support. How many security personnel do we have?"

"Including me?" The light blue pegasus mare from before asked her voice cracking somewhat. "Seventy three, we would have more but they are down on the Forerunner platform on the gas giant."

"That will have to do, split into two teams, and have them secure this deck and the engine room. See if you can disable any slipspace and weapons systems from here we cant let the humans get there hands on them nor can we allow them to steal the ship while we are onboard." Rainbow glanced back at the Legate behind her "I am in command now."

* * *

Nestled within a colossal canyon rising up against the snow capped cliffs was a great temple the walkways that led to the great doors were protected with hundreds of loyal covenant troops.

"_The entrance to the control center is located at the top of that pyramid, let's get up there." _John loaded a fresh magazine of seven point six two millimeter rounds into his rifle and took a single step only for the world to shake as his foot touched the ground.

"_Oh dear, we might need a bit more firepower." _From over the cliffside crawled a colossal hunched figure of reflective purple metal, hundreds of meters tall it crawled into the box canyon a great glowing eye scanning for the Spartan attackers as the Scarab moved to defend the control room. John paused to regard the new obstacle as William strode past him hefting a SPNKR rocket launcher.

"I don't know about that Cortana, the joints at the legs look a bit thin to me, what do you think John?" The Spartan in question glanced out at the arrayed covenant defences before turning back towards William.

"_That might just work." _Cortana might as well have read John's mind.

* * *

"You sure you want me to open this sir? The Covenant seem to have tried real hard to lock it down?" Private Jenkins turned back to look at Major Silva.

"Do it, lets see what the Covenant wanted to hide."


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

September 21st 2552

N'tho darted back the familiar comforting screaming of overstressed muscles rippling across his body as he ignited the short energy knife in his off hand and bisected one of the leaping terrors that scuttled out from the dark corridor as it tried to attach itself to him. Twisting his body as his feet touched the ground he let out a burst of superheated plasma into the teeming mass of monsters spilling into the room and darted back once more.

Far behind him in the back of the great hall just outside of the door leading to the exit was a loose phalanx where the Kig Yar and Unggoy had retreated too. From the gaps in the glowing shield wall bright green bolts of plasma shot into the seemingly infinite mass of horrors. In the middle of the Phalanx stood the Inquisitor and her human prisoner. The mare stood stock still with a look of detached terror on her face while her plasma pistol floated over her head firing slow methodical blasts into the teeming mass of flood as if she were at a practice range.

Outside and far away from the defensive shield wall Griffons and Sanghili danced about the room slicing, crushing and burning away the leaping terrors that survived the withering fire offered by the special operations Unggoy and Kig Yar. Masters of war born of different worlds, N'tho could hardly contain his elation at the battle, he remembered the ancient stories of the Great War of Blindness where legions of Sangheili and Equestrians fought in awesome battles that twisted and deformed the very planets that bore witness to the grand conflict leaving ruin and scares that remained over a thousand years hence.

With a growling shrek one of the corpses laid out upon the metal slabs, threw itself at N'tho from behind casting him out from his fantasies and back into the battle. Its flesh a rotting greenish yellow with organs that spilled out from the surgical cuts along its belly dangling uselessly. The room was filled with a grisly crack as he felt his arm give way under the impossible force of the unexpected attack, the arm of the former human had been warped into a parody of a whip crushing his shields and smacked into him.

N'tho let out a cry of rage and shame as he failed to keep his grip upon the plasma rifle in his hand, he found himself stumbling to the ground and rolling to the side to avoid the impossibly fast followup attack offered by the corpse. Real terrible fear kept in check by a lifetime of drills and training saw N'tho to his feet as he darted back from the impossible enemy before him, its torso had been split apart with exposed broken ribs pressed against the pulsing body of one of the scuttling flood forms filling a void it had no doubt created. Snapping and wiggling pink sensory organs spit out from the middle of the parasitical monster as the host body hung limply, puppeted by the terrible abomination.

Before it could chase him down one of the Griffons leaped with wings flaring to propel him forward and with incredible force crushed the human corpse with the butt of his rifle before darting away again to deal with the thinning trickle of small parasites. N'tho stumbled to the shield wall growling in embarrassment as it parted to allow him entry before rushing back into formation when he was though. He reassured himself that his retreat was to prevent any of his comrades from risking themselves to support him in a battle he had suddenly become unfit to fight.

"Your arm!" Twilight gasped pointing a hoof at the limb that hung limply at his side. N'tho looked down at it dazed and saw a thin spire of bone pushing out from the ruined scales of his wrist the armoured bracer ripped from his combat harness entirely.

"Nevermind me Inquisitor." N'tho returned his energy knife to its place upon his breastplate and drew his secondary plasma rifle in his unharmed left arm. "It seems the tide is thinning, one of the small ones attached itself to a human corpse and twisted it into an abomination!"

"This Flood, I remember it from the teachings of the great journey. One of the many trials along the path. A parasite, according to what little the Prophets could glean from the texts left to us by the Forerunners. We have to warn the fleet and establish a quarantine, we cannot allow it to escape." Twilight looked pale and N'tho ignored the bile on the ground out of respect for the mare, she was not a warrior and it was unbecoming to pass judgement upon her in the face of such a repugnant foe.

"A means to absolve humanity and another step on the great journey. Our struggles here will be a legend unrivaled!" N'tho offered the Human a smile and a laugh that was met with a withering stare the room feeling oddly silent with the strange energy felt in all soldiers when a victory was won with suspicious ease. The Flood was beaten back for now but for how long?

* * *

When Gilda arrived at the hanger she was shocked at how quiet it was. The ground was slick with blood both the bright red Equestrian and the dark blue Unggoy as well as a putrid rotting yellow slime that congealed into small heaps of pulsing rot. There was a horrible fetid scent of pus and death in the air that persisted even though her suits extensive filtering system.

Grand pires are all that remained of the utility craft and dropships that had filled the grand hanger. Spent casings from human ammunition littered the ground and in places scorches from plasma discharges told a tale of a very one sided battle. Gore, blood and ash seemed to be the only remains of a terrible slaughter that had taken place so rapidly and ended so suddenly.

"It's not the Humans Dash." Of that she was certain, something was horribly wrong and a part of her brain was screaming at her for missing something obvious. Whatever had done this was executing a plan, storm the hanger then move on to another objective as rapidly as possible.

"_What? Who else could it be? Equalists?"_ Several maintenance vents on the walls had been ripped open, giving a good indication as to where the mysterious attackers went.

"Where in Tartarus would an Equalist cell come from outside of the ship? It looks like whoever we are dealing with is using the vents, so lock everything down, if we can work out where they are we might be able to suffocate them." Gilda threw herself into a shooting stance with her hand legs planted and her wings outstretched for balance as she pressed her rifle into her shoulder and scanned the jagged mess of smouldering wreckage all about her.

"_Way ahead of you, all the vents converge on the biospheres anyway. The layout of this ship is a mess. You know the spheres are several decks deep? Some of them have bucking water tables! Anyway, the only place you can get from the hanger vents is a pleasure garden, but that garden connects to tons of systems and some of the other spheres too."_ Gilda was about to reply when it finally occurred to her, she snapped her head about looking at the various patches of gore and blood a deep primal terror clawing at her, forceful programming written into her very bones telling her, ordering her to ready herself for battle.

"Where are the bodies?"

* * *

Jacob and Twilight stood silently as they watched the purple flame dance over the putrid flood mass and uninfected bodies. It felt wrong, disrespectful even as he had no way of knowing how the men and women wished to be laid to rest. Regardless he doubted any of them would want to be puppeted around by some alien parasite.

"It makes no sense." The mare at his side huffed, the Grunts, Unggoy he supposed, had surprisingly offered comforting words in broken english. When he had asked Twilight she had dismissed that as a consequence of an 'Unggoy savant' condition.

"What?" The other Covenant seemed to be tolerating Jacob or simply humoring Twilight but even that was an opportunity he told himself. Humanity came first and if the delusional aliens would stop the genocidal war then he would do whatever it took. Surprisingly the Unicorn had proven entirely earnest in her intentions.

"Halsey and the Demon, demons. What happened to make them abandon this location? It looked like a battle had taken place but if it was the Flood surely the bodies would have been infected." She had a point.

"It could have been a fight over Halsey murdering the poor bastards on the slabs, or something to do with the bug horse." He shrugged turning away from the makeshift cremation good men and women who did not deserve to die.

"You honestly think she would kill them?" He turned to look at Twilight, her eyes were dull and bloodshot, tired and suffering. He felt an odd sense of gratification at seeing another person look as worn down and beaten as he felt. Not for the first time he wondered if he was entirely mentally stable or if he had succumbed to some from of stockholm syndrome or fallen for some Covenant mental conditioning. That would make much more sense then parasite aliens out of a horror movie and magical talking unicorns.

"What else could have happened here? You said yourself that it was not the Flood." The mare looked at the ground frowning, no doubt deep in thought. He looked back at the crackling fire, the purple blaze burned with incredible uniformity working through the bodies as if it had a will of its own. It did, the thought was unwelcome but he had seen enough to believe Twilight had some sort of power and decided that magic was as good a name for it as any other.

"We need to get to the surface, a signal cannot penetrate the forerunner metal and I need to contact the fleet, they need to know that Humanity is absolved and the Flood are on the ring, we need to establish a quarantine."

They stayed for a while until there was nothing but ash left on the ground, just blood and ash. They turned away walking towards the elevator followed by the vicious forms of the Griffon guards, the other Covenant had decided to wait on the elevator, figuring the smell of discarded waste was preferable to burning corpses. Or it might have been out of some alien respect for him it was impossible to tell.

With a flash of purple light Twilight activated the elevator and the party began to ascend, there had not been a single casualty in the fight with the flood but several of them sported lacerations or minor wounds. The group was quiet as they carefully stepped off the elevator and made their way towards the transports inside the mouth of the structure.

Without warning the deep muddy puddles just outside of the structure began to bubble and froth as mud drenched flood scuttled out from them in formidable numbers. The swamps treeline lit up in a dazzling display of green and blue bolts as well as bright yellow flashes and dozens of lumbering infected bodies began to discharge scavenged weapons wildly into the structure.

Despite the inaccurate nature of the weapons fire two Unggoy and a Kig Yar were cut down before anyone could react to the sudden and inexplicable flood ambush. Griffon guards grabbed Twilight and Jacob pulling them away from the fire and dragging them back to the elevator as the other guards threw themselves into the air to engage the flood.

N'tho despite his wound charged forward with Zuka 'Zamamee and the other Sangheili in a desperate attempt to secure the transports. Unggoy and Kig Yar threw themselves into a semblance of a defensive formation just barely fighting back the parasites securing time for the two Griffons to drag the Inquisitor and Captain away from the fighting.

"Wait! Wait, I have to contact the fleet!" Twilight activated her holographic display and manically manipulated it before screaming over the desperate firefight. "This is Inquisitor Twilight Sparkle, I have encountered the Flood! Forget about the Humans focus on the Flood! Don't let any ship leave the surface, don't let the Flood escape! This overrides Reclamation protocol, this overrides the crusade against the Humans they have been -Aghhhhh!"

Jacob drew his hidden pistol and fired at one of the parasites as it plunged from the shadows to cling onto Twilights back, the surprisingly large flood was torn apart the magnum rounds sending it flying away from the mare into a messy wet heap. Her shield had done nothing to prevent its razor sharp feelers from raking along her back and digging in to the gaps between the Nanolaminate thread but the uniform had saved her from more than superficial damage. The Unicorn lit her horn to form a bright purple shield around the four of them as blood pooled under her uniform.

"We have to get down now!" Jacob shouted at the Griffon holding him he watched the parasite forms begin to encircle the Kig Yar and Unggoy while Griffons and Sanghili darted about the battlefield in a desperate battle. A moment passed before the colossal bird nodded and let him go before activating the lift sending the four of them plunging into the darkness below.

* * *

"Kore, stop not in front of-" Markus found himself pressed against the wall the petite woman in front of him pressed against him with a giggle while the birdlike alien let out a mocking whistle in the background.

"Mark" The women's voice was husky as she looked up into his eyes, she had an odd mix of clothes on with dress shoes, naval officer trousers and one of his own green marine shirts that hung loosely on her frame, given the rapid escape from the Pillar of Autumn some of the personnel had to borrow or repair what little clothes the survivors had available. "I need to borrow your socks!" The woman beamed a perfect smile as Markus responded with a groan.

"I only have two pairs!" He tried to keep a stern expression but found the corner of his mouth betraying him.

"Exactly! You only need to put on one at a time and mine have holes in, pleeeeease." with a giggle his girlfriend pulled his shoulders down to give him a peck on the lips before pressing her head against his chest.

"You are on duty." Markus almost jumped out of his skin as the imposing form of a Spartan entered the makeshift mortar pool slash prison, the tall form of James one of the engineers following behind the armoured lieutenant. Markus and Kore jumped apart and snapped to attention as the Spartan regarded them, her face hidden by the reflective helmet. "At ease, the Wrecker and I are here to interrogate the alien."

"There should be someone on the gun at all times." James strode forward as Kore let out a squeak and rushed to man the Warthog cannon.

Gabby's head popped up from its position comfortably resting against her body as the pair walked in and gracefully rose to stand on all four limbs.

"Huh, a Demon, thought you would be taller. Nice arm, did a child make it or is it a museum piece?" Kat strode forward while regarding the Griffon her expression impossible to see with her helmet on but Gabby continued regardless. "Why are you bright blue? Do you only fight in tropical water? Do you have wings I can't see? I thought you were all meant to be green."

"Your not that funny." Kat braced herself against the long alien rifle she had carried with her.

"That implies that you find me at least somewhat amusing"

"How does this weapon function?" Kat inclined her head towards the rifle she was leaning against.

"Magic" Gabby grinned maniacally and let out a gigglesnort. "Oh no! Oh that is embarrassing, please forget I did that."

"When the trigger is depressed it fires a blast of focused kinetic energy, the weapon will then cease to function for five secconds before it can be fired again."

"Sounds about right, upset trigger, cessation of fun."

"You should take this seriously alien."

"In what world would I take you seriously cyborg?" Kat's body tensed in barely contained rage as Gabby's face morphed from a glare into an expression of twisted glee. "Oh found a way under your skin! If you have skin, might just be circuits and bolts under there." Kat was about to respond when an explosion rumbled through the room and gunshots sounded out in the night.

"It's a Covenant attack!" Markus shouted looking at the Spartan for orders.

"Oh that sounds like my ride." Gabby reached down to the chain holding the smooth black runestones around her leg and plucked one free, the round stone passing though the silver chain as if it was not there. Around her the Humans took notice and drew weapons or pointed ones they had already drawn to aim at the large prisoner.

"What are you doing?" Kat had drawn her magnum pistol and had it trained on the Griffon in case she somehow found a way past the shimmering Covenant energy shield. Gabby was looking at the rune in her talons mumbling to herself.

"Just checking its the right one, hang on its all in stupid old... Yeah I think it's the right one, won't do anything if it's not just dust itself." Gabby smiled at the Spartan and spread her wings as she began to glow the small stone rising from her talons, held aloft by arcane might as it began to shine with awesome grey light. "_Prohibere!" _As the Griffon shouted out the word a blinding flash of light shot out from the stone and it was reduced to ash, the screeching sound of a gauss cannon discharging filling the room followed by small arms fire.

Gabby chuckled as she pushed through the shimmering field of light before her, the energy shield bending around her form and gliding away like water without gravity to give it form. "Conventional defences, beating though it would have taken me a long time but forcing the little energetic particles to stay still for a little bit?" she sauntered forwards lifting a claw to scrape along the side of the metal slug discharged from the mounted cannon pointed at her makeshift cell, the deadly projectile hung in the air, frozen in place. "You don't expect Loony to send us out with the savages without a way to make the fight unfair do you?".

Dozens of projectiles littered the air utterly still as the Griffon rolled her neck and shoulders approaching the stunned humans. The men and women before her lowered weapons and backed away from the large lion-eagle but the single Spartan held her ground. Kat huffed in confusion as she lowered her magnum, she had fired but the rounds had only traveled a few centimeters away from the weapon before stopping, the brass casing holding still in the air where they had been ejected from the weapon.

"This is impossible, why can we still move?." The Spartan backed away from the Griffon clipping the sidearm to her hip and hefted the rifle on her shoulder slowly circling the massive alien.

"Living things don't behave when you tell them to stop silly." Gabby giggled drawing her body closer to the ground in a predatory prowl while simply ignoring the other humans "Even if they probably should." With impressive suddenness Kat twisted her body and hefted the immense Griffon rifle aiming it at Gabby's face and discharging the weapon.

"Pfft! Haha, you didn't actually think that would work did you? I mean if you had an enchanted cartridge loaded you might have had good odds at shooting me with the spell in effect but just spitting the rifles charge at me? Hand over the rifle and I will be on my way, no need to get the bolts knocked out of you cyborg." The Spartan in question simply discarded the rifle onto the ground, only for the colossal weapon to hang in the air and drew her magnum and knife.

"This 'spell' stops the round after it has traveled for a few centimeters, I wonder what a contact shot will do."

"Too clever for your own good." The pair moved faster then they had any real right too, Gabby rearing up and kicking off the ground to add momentum to a downward swipe of her deadly talons and the Spartan throwing herself forward with enough force to dent the ancient metal floor. The opening move of the fight showed Kat the faster and Gabby was forced to abandon her attack and twist to the side with a magically enhanced flap of her colossal wings to avoid the powerful stab threatening her stomach.

Shedding momentum as she skidded across the ground Gabby threw herself back into the fight slamming an open palmed talon into Kats elbow as the Spartan attempted to keep her away with a quick swipe causing the room to flare a bright yellow as the Spartan's shielding attempted to bleed away the incredible force of the Griffon attack and almost failed utterly. Forced to twist to the side Kat dropped the magnum pistol and threw her body into a savage punch sending the cybernetic limb into Gabbys face with a terrible crack that sent the bird reeling in a daze.

Seizing the opportunity Kat threw her body forward once more grasping her knife in both hands putting all of her strength and mass into a single attack against the Griffon. Near blind red filled her vision Gabby let out a shrieking battlecry and grasped the arms of the Spartan desperately holding her at arms length, mechanical servos, formidable strength and fading magical enchantments fought each other to a standstill the Griffon and Spartan pushed fruitlessly against each other.

With creaking bones and screaming muscles Gabby found an advantage and forced the Spartan back a step, with the upper hand the lion eagle snapped her head back and with another predatory screech threw her head forward slamming her beak into the reflective helmet before her.

The helmet gave way shattering, forcing Kat to stagger back and slaken her arms as her nose was crushed. Gabby hefted the stunned Spartan and threw her across the room staggering somewhat as she blinked the blood from her eyes.

"Heh, they call that the Griffon kiss." Gabby slurred, her left eye was intact but was a stark red around her iris. "Well I do, did, just now. You have quite the arm on you cyborg." Kat pulled the ruined helmet from her head and threw it away only for it to hang in the air after it left her hands. The Spartians face was ruined, shards from her helmet dug into her skin and she had more of a bloody bruise then a face but with a silent glare she rose to her feet in a single smooth motion and assumed a fighting stance.

Twisting about suddenly a bright green flash filled the room Gabby could only gasp in shock and let out a screech.

"Chan-" a dark green bolt of light struck her it sent the weakened griffon to the ground unconscious. The moment Gabby touched the ground every projectile shot forward impacting the walls and floor in an awesome cacophony of sound and destructive force.

But the world was quiet for Markus. The man shook as he held the rifle to his shoulder aiming where Kore had been standing, in her place was a mockery of the human form. It had two legs, two arms, a head and a somewhat feminine form but its eyes where a directionless glowing blue, long deadly fangs protruded from its mouth. It held up its arms in surrender but one of them still glowed the dark green light that had knocked out the Griffon, pits and holes dotted its arms and light shone through the dull, dark insectoid carapace.

"M-mark, please put down the gun." The thing had the audacity to use Kore's voice but with an insectoid edge.

"Where is Kore! What have you done with her!" Markus felt his voice crack as he jabbed the rifle at the thing in front of him.

"I am Kore!"

"Your an alien!"

"No! I am Human! Check my blood, check a computer. ONI general order green three fou-"

"Shut up!" The insectoid thing calling itself Kore squeaked in fear.

"Please don't kill me, I had to stop the Griffon. Mark please." Markus could feel warm water dripping from his chin as he shook his head, finger tightening on the trigger.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

September 21st 2552

Wellsley dutifully performed his rounds in the evening, his influence extending across the butte that held the defiant Alpha Base. He was within every networked computer, he could see through every active helmet camera he could feel the wind and the quiet thrum of the ring itself in the perimeter defence accelerometers. He could see the strange alien birds overhead in the anti air defences sensor systems and felt the heartbeat of his people, his army, his friends in the various lifesign monitors built into the robust equipment they carried.

Turning his attention away from the defenses he looked inward at the personnel he was duty bound to protect. In a crowded bunkroom a marine held onto a fist full of dog tags and bowed his head in quiet prayer careful not to disturb anyone who managed to restlessly fall asleep. In an empty mess hall an engineer struggled to feed himself with his remaining arm. Where a squad of ODST assumed themselves beyond scrutiny trophies where admired, a corporal boasting an alien talon and several feathers.

He watched as Melissa McKay's body turned a sudden and violent red, invisible to the human eye as her heart pumped blood through her body. The biological people around him did not quite comprehend him and he supposed that he did not quite comprehend them. Cortana might, he cast his mind back to the skirmish over the ring, when he and Cortana faced impossible odds in a daring battle to protect over one thousand lives.

He was slower than she was, he would tell himself that they complimented each other, with data sharing and rapid handovers of the extensive data processing centers of the _Pillar of Autumn_ and the thousands of systems she had handed over for his oversight but in truth he was old, dumb. She would have been better served with a more advanced auxiliary intelligence one that did not make quite so many mistakes, one that could process information more rapidly and think more creatively.

Mistakes, that was a crippling concept. Alone he was formidable and could process information at a speed no organic could match and with additional hardware he could reach near infinite computation far outstripping the processing capability of the unique smart AI architecture. But he would still make mistakes, he would be outsmarted or not consider some variable and it would cost the humans that relied upon him dearly. He did not have a deadline, not like Cortana, not like Silva. They would live and they would die but he would continue, new auxiliary intelligences would be created. Better intelligences to serve humanity and in the compassion of his creators they would likely keep him around, keep him alive.

He was not sure he was alive, he was not created by flash cloning a human brain and transferring that organic consciousness into an incredible disembodied lifeform, he was created through iterative programming. Centuries of trial and error that had slowly begun to emulate humanity. He thought back to the many people who had died under his care and lamented, life and death allowed a person to meet the age they found themselves in, to use what they had then and there. Smart AI and biological humans could enter the world learn, grow and leave the world better than they found it.

Wellsley would become slower and slower, making more mistakes until it was impossible to justify his use. Then he would do nothing but take up space until his data corrupted in tens of thousands of years if he was lucky, but all the more likely he would be transferred into new hardware and repaired no matter how useless he became. A monument to the past, an unmoving thing, an imitation of life like a tree made of plastic, a useless facade.

Irregular patterns, Wellsley cast himself away from his selfish contemplation and into the perimeter sensors. Trying to build a picture of the world around him from the limited sources he had at his disposal. Across Alpha Base the many systems and assets controlled by Wellsley snapped to attention or began to humm with effort as the mystery began to unfurl.

A low constant screeching consistent with combat footage of Covenant ground transports, atmospheric displacement in the valley and a spike of carbon dioxide and methane detected, minor seismic activity that would be undetectable to human senses.

It was an attack. That should have been obvious from the start since he had been expecting the Covenant to launch an attack after letting the convoy that raided the Pillar of Autumn return to Alpha Site unmolested. Dozens of mortar tanks and hundreds of scout transports were approaching the site in a grand nighttime raid.

Turning his attention back he activated the small holographic projector on McKay's desk watching as the bright red flash faded from her skin. The woman was biting into an uncooked dehydrated ration block, an odd habit that would no doubt play havoc with her digestion, he predicted a minor reduction in her command efficiency tomorrow.

"Lieutenant" He did not wait idly as the women slowly processed his presence and formulated a response, he began to prepare defences, alerted defenders and ordered them into position and sent out customised firing packets out to the various automated defence systems.

"Wellsley? What is it?" The AI politely waited until she finished and had a moment to think before he responded.

"The Covenant is massing in the valley below us there is at least four hundred of them, and likely many more in reserve." He sent a ping out to the four Spartan Mjolnir defensive systems in the base, the formidable armour had its own battlenet and it was protocol to avoid networking with the armour if at all possible to aid in the prevention of electronic attack.

"Air support?" Wellsley dedicated some processing cycles to simulating a human smile on his holographic avatars face to show his appreciation for her professionalism.

"None that I have detected, considering the extensive anti aircraft defences we have available and the limited assets the Covenant have in this theater I expect the blighters have opted to abandon air supremacy entirely. It seems that they are transporting a force to enter the tunnels under the base and simply fight through them to the top of the butte while mortar tanks fire onto us from the valley below this will allow us to deploy our own birds and punish them."

"No." McKay shook her head and looked at her desk. "What if the Covenant have more of the Griffons or mobile anti air? Our air assets are too valuable and too limited to risk. We lose them and we die, simple as that." Wellsley did not argue, it was difficult for him to process the value of asset retention for future engagements when all the simulations he had run had shown that it was impossible for them to have survived this long anyway. He could run some speculative simulations but that would take too long, if Cortana was here.

But she was not, they only had him and he would have to do.

* * *

Warm and muddy rain dripped from tens of thousands of small microfractures in the dazzling energy shield overhead. Water drawn from under the dome was carried between the energy shield and transparent metal hull to create the illusion of rain in the pleasure dome, soft and rich earth with wild tall grass concealed a dirty yellow mare and a diminutive Unggoy. The mare channeled what little power she had though her wings to maintain a small bubble of atmospheric pressure about her.

Pressed tightly into the ground under her Hurp allowed himself little more than light frightened breaths. The monsters had came without warning turning the small game hunting dome into a bloody mess. Security teams had rushed into the dome only to be swarmed and eaten alive. Hurp and Fluttershy had escaped the notice of the monsters by hiding like the others had.

Of course when the ones brave enough to fight had died the monsters began to lumber about in stolen bodies towards Unggoy hidden in the mud or ponies whimpering quietly. Hurp considered himself a clever man, he had after all almost reached his third decade and he did not manage that by ignoring the world around him. He saw Fluttershy dart to the ground and wiggle into place deep in the rich mud, he saw the puddle around her shimmer in a rough circle without any visible cause for it to do so.

His choices were quite simple, trust his hiding place would allow him to survive or crawl over to the butter yellow mare and put his trust into the strange pony witchcraft that he had seen outperform the so called miracles of the forerunners thousands of times over the course of his life.

Fluttershy had not even blinked as he crawled up to her, she had simply lifted a wing and turned slightly so the pair of them could more effectively cling to each other as they pressed themselves into the mud like the small flightless birds that Sanghili used this dome to hunt. It did not take a genius to work out what Fluttershy was doing, sense of smell was very limited for Unggoy given the Methane tanks they required to breathe forced them to live lives in haptic suits but ponies had an incredible sense of smell, he had joked often to pony friends that they would smell him before they saw him and that always made them smile and laugh.

Hurp felt his eyes water in pain from the memory as one of his dear pony friends lumbered dangerously just a dozen meters away, his yellowed rotten eyes darting about as blood red feelers wiggled from the wound in his neck to taste the air. The monsters could hear, see and smell that was clear enough to Hurp. The faded gardening mark on his friends flank could still be seen on the warped, rotten flesh.

Suddenly the dead pony stopped and twisted its head about as if looking for something. Hurp readied himself for death as he felt Fluttershy's grip tightened. He decided that he did not want to see it coming and closed his eyes tight.

There was a splash and a crack that sounded out though the hunting dome. He felt Fluttershy gasp softly and could only keep his eyes closed for a few more moments before his curiosity got the better of him. The pony corpse was floating in the air, its spine was broken and its limbs hung uselessly. With an explosion of yellow fluid its chest was torn open and one of the scuttling monsters was exposed and crushed by a transparent and colossal form.

The light shimmered as the colossal figures camouflage failed. It stood like a mountain holding the limp body of the infected pony in a single taloned hand before discarding it into the ground with a wet thud. It turned towards Hurp and Fluttershy a reflective helmet concealing its face, with a roar the dozens of corpses that had remained in the dome rather then moving on with the rest of the monsters charged towards the newcomer.

Dead unggoy thundered towards the giant using all four limbs to lope forward, blood red feelers poking out grotesquely from stomachs and necks snapping about as they tasted the air. Pegusi with necks bent in horrible positions of agony circled about in the air, wings bloated and rotten but still carrying the puppeted dead. Ponies with yellowed muscle bloated to impossible proportions sent dirt flying into the air as they charged forwards with frightening speed.

The giant seemed to move slowly, turning itself towards whatever was threatening it and striking with perfect precision. No movement was wasted, a swipe from talons that cut a dead pegasus in half was followed by a flap of the wings that sent the colossal warrior into the sky to fall upon a charging infected unggoy.

The attacking horde that had so effortlessly crushed the security force and continued on like the force of an unstoppable wave clashed uselessly against this avenging angel. Great and terrible the terrified pair huddled in the mud as there unexpected saviour did battle with a supernatural confidence.

Hurp watched speechless as with ease the dozen nightmarish monsters were crushed, bisected and beaten. It was only when the dome was still again with only the pitter-patter of rain to fill his ears that Hurp considered that he was in the presence of such a dangerous being with a motivation that was utterly unknown to him. He stayed utterly still as the giant looked down at them turning its head in an oddly avian fashion before throwing itself into the air and over to the other side of the dome.

Fluttershy wiggled away from him and pushed herself to her hooves and Hurp followed her example only because he could not find an excuse not too. There was an awkward moment of silence when the giant picked something up from the ground and threw itself into the air again flying towards the pair with enough force to flatten the tall grass several meters under it. With a splash the giant landed directly in front of him and Herp involuntarily fell onto his rump in fear

"Take this, the pair of you will report to the bridge." It was a feminine voice speaking in Equestrian. Hurp looked up at the giant and saw it was extending the butt of a plasma pistol towards him, likely from one of the bodies of the security team. He bit back a comment as to the value of the weapon when its last owner was dead and took the pistol feeling it's unfamiliar weight in his hand. Nodding the giant turned away and was about to flap its powerful wings when Fluttershy squeaked something out.

"W-who are you?!" Hurp took a step back as the giant paused and turned her head back without moving her body.

"I am a friend of Rainbow Dash." And then with a flap of her powerful wings she threw herself into the air and glided to one of the exits of the dome leading towards the engineering section.

"We should do what she said" Fluttershy spoke after a while.

"Yes." Hurp looked around at his dead friends and tightened his grip on the plasma pistol, he would not join them.

The pair ran the moment they worked up the nerve to do so.

* * *

CHECKING FILE SYSTEMS...

DONE...

CHECKING SECURITY : STATD

ENCRYPTION CODE : GREEN

SUBMIT SECURITY CREDENTIALS:  
SPARTAN-B320

IDENTITY CONFIRMED...

ACCESS:  
GENERAL ORDER 3417-2552

ACCESS GRANTED

FILE ACCESS:  
By inquiry of the Office of Naval Intelligence in cooperation with the United Nations Security Council and the Unified Earth Government this documentation classifies all present and future members of the Changeling race as Human beings entitled to all the rights and protections under the Charter of the United Nations.

The Office of Naval Intelligence moves to classify the population of the Changeling race as a protected minority group. The Unified Earth Government moves to recognise the cultural leadership of the Changeling race and offers such leaders rights offered by the Convention on Historic Monarchy and Inherited Wealth 2341. The Unified Earth Government recognizes the establishment of the Changeling cultural court and justice system for members of the Changeling race under Supreme Court supervision as per the founding charter of the United Nations. In consequence for this classification the Changeling race shall be subject to conscription and shall not be subject to the 2538 amendment allowing minority groups to dispute active service.

In recognition of the historical oppression of the Changeling race at the hands of the Equestrian Imperial Government a day of remembrance will be recognised by the Unified Earth Government with the declassification of documents relating to the Changeling race.

Signatories:  
Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky  
Colonel James Ackerson  
Major General Nicolas Strauss  
General Alexander Hogan  
Queen Chrysalis  
Doctor Ruth Charet  
Secretary Paul Murphy Russel  
Minister David Dunn

August 11 2552 at Sydney emergency conference for the defence of Reach.

FILE ACCESS END...  
LOGGING OUT...

Kat had to reread the document twice staring dumbstruck at the small wrist computer and cursing the Griffon for destroying her helmet. No doubt her expression was betraying her but she could not spare a glance for the other three occupants of the room nor did the screaming of wrath tank projectiles draw her attention as she looked at the unassuming document proclaiming nothing short of treason.

With effort she policed her expression and lowered her arm looking at the bug eyed pitch black alien looking up at her with an unsettlingly human expression.

"She is telling the truth." Orders are orders, she was a soldier, she had volunteered her life to the UNSC and it had given her everything. She would not betray it even if that meant ignoring the conspicuous absence of Lord Hood's signature on a document from his own security council.

The alien smiled, her face lit up with a big grin that looked far too preditory for Kat's liking but she was a soldier. She had volunteered her life to the UNSC and it had given her meaning again after all the fire and blood. She would not betray it even if that meant going against her instincts.

James and Markous looked at her with horrified, terrified expressions. They shouted questions that she responded to by standing just a bit taller, deepening her frown, putting her hand on the pistol on her hip. By telling them the document was classified and her word was good enough.

She was a soldier. She had volunteered her life to the UNSC for the protection of humanity, she was not an Admiral or a Colonel or anyone who was fit for grand strategic or political judgement. If she was ordered to fight by the side of aliens and call them human when that was nothing but a lie then she would.

The alien got to its feet and Kat struggled to keep her pistol holstered. Rather then shoot it in the face she nodded her head and ordered the three of them to secure the Griffon before turning and marching away towards the Covenant assault.

Towards a problem she could understand, a problem she could shoot. All the while she tried to fight down the treacherous thought.

_If they can shapeshift, then quite possibly not a single Human signed that order._

As she drove herself forward into the tunnels under the butte eager for battle to quiet her mind Kat made herself a promise. She swore to herself that if the order was a lie she would find out and she would act in humanity's best interest.

* * *

From a flash of yellow shimmering light a small women appeared with her arms wrapped around the prone and still from of a Spartan. She had found herself inside a dark musty room with shattered glass and brown stains coating the floor. Smiling contently to herself the women got to her feet and began to search the abandoned tringe center piling her pilfered goods onto a stained gurney.

After she was satisfied she pulled off her jacket and began to brush clean a space around the prone armoured warrior before beginning to manipulate said stiff armour to access injection ports and pulling away burnt and broken sections. A quick check on a diagnostic device informed her that the reactor in the armour had survived the trip. After an hour of work she had attached the sleeping soldier to saline feeds and lifesign monitors.

"That is you sorted, now we just have to find a way off this ring." getting to her feet after groaning at her aging body Halsey berated herself for speaking, likely a reaction to the near death experience she had just suffered. Sighing Halsey slipped out of the room into the corridor, black scorching on the walls indicated that this section had been exposed to the atmosphere as the ship landed.

Even without markings on the walls Halsey knew where to go, she had managed to calculate her teleport using the absurd cosmic coordinate system the ring used with such precision that she had ended up inside a medical facility on a ship that was not even technically within the grids network. An area of the ship she suspected would be utterly undesirable to the Covenant occupants and would allow her access to the facilities she would require if there was any hope of escape.

It had taken her nine hours and the lives of the command crew but she had done it, when the artificial construct had appeared only to steal away Ackerson's little psychopath she was certain that she was going to die but for some baffling reason when she had tried to infiltrate the ring's computer it had given her unrestricted access to all systems that could be used remotely after only a few moments of prodding. Far more information then even someone of her caliber could shift though in a decade but with the glowing ball demonstrating its disappearing act she had a rough idea of where to look.

The Ring contained no shuttles or transports, no armouries and no facilities that could produce anything the ring was not designed to possess. It had seemed pointlessly restrictive at first but once she understood what it was for she was struggling to find fault in the rings design.

Regardless she needed to escape, her Spartan that the construct had deemed 'too damaged' to steal from her would take months to recover from the mortal wounds Halsey had saved her from if her body accepted the new organs. For a moment Halsey felt cold and empty and wrong, but it passed. Everything she did was necessary, she had no choice.

Snoring, from the hall to her right. Halsey froze and only after the alien and yet familiar sound continued did she slowly begin to move forward again, every rustle from her coat and footfall landing louder than she intended driving her heart to beat faster and faster until she could hardly restrain the short gasps for air that escaped her.

She was too loud, too clumsy and deathly afraid. This was not where she was meant to be and cursed the little glowing ball from stealing away her secondary reactor, with it she could have saved the marine or perhaps Parangosky's little security risk, its ability would be invaluable given her current predicament. She supposed the soldier attached to said reactor would have also been useful, it followed orders at least.

Moving on the balls of her feet as she slowly stalked forward to investigate Halsey poked her head into one of the many bunk rooms dotted about the ship. The Pillar of Autumn was rated to operate with a sparse crew that could drop down even as low as several hundred. But it would normally operate with at least one thousand naval personnel, the ship itself could support three or four thousand occupants with another thousand in cold storage for up to a year given ample supplies.

Halsey felt a jolt of dread hit her as she spotted the prone form of a Covenant solder in the room but it quickly dissipated when she found no evidence of any other Covenant around. The sleeper was resting on a mattress ripped from a bunk and dumped onto the ground with empty ration packets strewn around and a pile of half eaten rations thrown a few meters or so away.

Halsey did her best to think of an appropriate swear word but as clever as she was nothing could quite illustrate her frustration. The fact that the Covenant was confident enough to be active in this isolated section was improbable, by all rights they had nothing to gain by occupying this area and denying her the capacity to use the engineering station with anything resembling confidence.

For a moment she considered just shooting the sleeping alien but the idea was quickly discarded, she had no doubt that the sound of gunfire would alert others to her position and she was sure that once the Covenant knew she was here they would quickly find and kill her. Turning away and sneaking back to the medical room she sighed and set herself down on one of the less desiccated beds in the room and saw to her bodies petulant demands for nourishment.

If she did not approach this situation carefully she would die, there was no question of it. Her advantage was stealth, she would not be so stupid as to think she could outwit her opponents. Her only salvation and by proxy the only hope for mankind would come from carefully gathering information on her environment and moving herself and her cargo into any ship that was available without notice.

For a moment she found herself considering bringing Linda out of the induced medical coma but decided against it. Her Spartains were formidable but far from immortal and it was dangerous enough to remove her from the cryo chamber and use organs that could be rejected rather than flash cloning them but she had little choice in the matter given the circumstances.

She dreaded the idea of being so vulnerable while on a ship occupied by Covenant but she had to sleep if she had any hope of operating with anything approaching rationality. Ignoring the unsanitary conditions and trying her best to quash her useless fear Halsey closed her eyes and forced herself to rest. When she woke up she would investigate the hanger to find a ship, any ship.

Before a restless sleep took her she considered the value of approaching Alpha Site and working with the other Humans to escape the ring or finding a way to safely leave the system on her own. Regardless she had to recover the rest of her Spartains, no matter the cost.

* * *

Twilights back throbbed painfully but the mare kept her purple shield active as little parasites dropped from above onto the glowing barrier. The fact that so many of the horrors had made it past the others on the surface was deeply troubling.

"I hope you have more tricks in that horn of yours, I don't like the idea of being killed and puppeted by these things." Twilight looked at Jacob and opened her mouth to speak before shuddering, swallowing back bile and feeling suddenly faint. She forced aside her weakness and met the man's eyes.

"Me too. I am glad you did not use your weapon to escape, how many more times can it discharge?" Jacob winced and looked at the pistol in his hands.

"Eleven, I was not expecting a firefight. Carrying ammunition around seemed like it was likely to get me caught."

"How do you manage to maintain supply lines when you use such primitive weapons?" Twilight shook away a clawing fog from her mind drawing concerned glances from her Griffon guard.

"It's a mystery even to us but somehow we muddle through." Jacob blinked as a glowing plasma pistol was suddenly thrust into his chest.

"You know how to use it? It's not a fresh charge but it should be enough for several hundred discharges, I need to focus on my spells anyway." With a humm the elevator reached the ground and secured it self into place with a magnetic click. Twilight took the opportunity to dispel her shield, sending unfocused magical energy blasting out into the parasites that were crawling over it destroying them as the magic rapidly turned to heat and light. The four of them rushed forward to secure the room and seal the door behind them as parasites dropped from the elevator shaft after them.

"There must be another way out, this ring is entirely artificial these structures must all be connected!" Twilight turned and pointed a hoof up the ramp at a door on the floor above them "We have to g-" The mare turned as on the other side of the hall there was a screech of grinding metal and watched with horror was the stasis chambers she had pressed up against the door as a barricade were slowly pushed away from the broken door.

The two griffons stepped forward to put themselves between whatever came out from the barricaded tunnel and Twilight. Without warning the stasis chamber was thrown forward and around the edges poured another wave of parasites. Jacob and the griffons fired into the swarm but there were just too many. With another screech the chamber was thrown forward even farther and infected surged around the edges of the barricade. Green plasma and purple glowing shards being fired wildly into the hall as the flood surged forward.

The two griffons darted forward activating cloaking systems in a desperate attempt to gain any advantage against the innumerable enemy. As they engaged without the support of the other griffons and the special operations team the pair risked magical burnout by using the runestone spells they had available.

Dripping balls of molten metal were formed and sent hurtling into the swarm and the air was abuze with dozens of illusionary copies of one of the griffon guards. Slamming himself into the ground one of the griffons screamed out a curse as he was swarmed by the parasites and the flood around him was reduced to a thick black tar that bubbled and rolled away from the griffon. The power of the spell was such that even Jacob could feel it twisting reality unnaturally. It quickly overwhelmed the capability of the Griffon and sent him warthing on the ground as another wave of parasites surged over the hardening black tar to attack the prone convulsing body.

Twilight tried to focus her mind but found magical formula that should have been trivial was perplexing her, her horn sputtering as she broke out in a horrible burning sweat. Twilight stumbled and fell onto her side blinking slowly as she tried to work out why. Trying to push herself onto her hooves she felt a sharp, shooting pain and white hot burning coming from her right foreleg with resistance as she tried to strengthen the limb.

Looking for the cause Twilight had just enough time to register the glowing purple shard dug deep into her leg and wonder why her energy shield had failed to stop the projectile. Suddenly her head was thrown back by an explosion that sent her thudding limply against the ground. A dull malase filled Twilight as her ears rang horribly, blinking she looked down and saw the jagged stump her limb had become. Lighting her horn to stop the blood escaping she began to pull herself forward with her remaining forehoof looking around.

"Twilight!" The mare in question felt something grab her and she lazily turned towards the voice seeing Jacob look at her with a horrified expression.

"J-jacob you have to help me find it, it's somewhere here." Twilight tried her best to steady her breathing and keep herself awake, the dark spots at the edge of her vision slowly growing.

"Don't speak, I got you. Keep the pressure on it, I will get you out" She did what she was told, low level persistent casting was one of her specialties and she fondly remembered Princess Celestia praising her control and endurance.

"I-it should hurt, I think it should hurt." Keyes tried to pull the mare up before swearing.

"You're too heavy!" A moment later he felt the strange tingling of Twilight's magic as the mare found an unexpected moment of clarity. With a suddenness that shocked him he pulled up the mare and held her in his arms as he charged through great forerunner hall towards the ramp with inhuman strength.

"I think I am in shock, we need to find my leg." Twilight winced as she continued to augment Jacobs strength with her magic and prevent any of her precious lifeblood from escaping the jagged wound that was once her leg.

"Don't think about it, you are going to be okay" His voice was firm as he charged forward panting from the incredible exertion as he ran away from the coming horde, bold strength invergerating him and sending an electric confidence through the man.

'CRACK!'

Twilight hissed in pain as a coppery fluid sprayed into one of her eyes. Blinking the fluid away she turned to look at Jacob who kept running for a while before frowning in confusion, then he let out a choking cough as a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth.

A moment later the pair of them fell to the hard ground in a tumbling heap and the scuttling horde was upon them. Twilight screamed as a razor-sharp tentacle plunged though both her uniform and her skin, wriggled under her flesh, and tapped her spinal cord. There was an explosion of pain so intense that she blacked out, only to be brought back to the waking world by a dizzying cocktail of chemicals the parasite had injected into her bloodstream.

She tried to call out, her eyes fixed open, staring at Jacob just a scant few feet away, his unblinking eyes looking into her own. Her heart raced as her extremities grew numb, one by one. Her lungs felt heavy.

She tried to scream, to cry for her brothers, Celestia, her father or even her mother, but it wouldn't let her.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

September 21st 2552, Deployment+52:27:11 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)

"Scanning, Covenant forces in the vicinity have been eliminated. Let's move on to Halo's control centre." As John and his team moved in he glanced over at Vinh who fell into step on his right. In the battle her experimental high capacity shielding had failed, thankfully her quick reflexes had prevented anything more than a minor burn on her right leg but it still worried John.

Vinh had gone from a formidable vanguard to a weak link. Cortana had assured them that her shields could be repaired but for how long? How reliably? What would happen if other components in the absurdly complex Mjolnir armour failed?

Vinh put too fingers to her helmet as she looked towards John and he mirrored her. Turning towards a holographic display she activated the large door in front of them, with a hiss and a large magnetic clack the barrier split into four sections and retreated into the walls, floor and ceiling.

John strode into the Control room lowering his rifle and looking around as the silent colossal space was filled with the sound of four distinct footsteps. Blue Team found itself on an immense platform. A gleaming reflective bridge, apparently without supports, extended over an impossibly deep emptiness and extending towards a great circular walkway.

In the centre of the round walkway was a lazily spinning holographic model of the solar system. A giant transparent image of the gas giant overhead, the small gray moon in  
orbit around it, and suspended between the two, the immense ring was far greater in scale spinning wildly around the gas giant dwarfing it in size despite being over twenty one times smaller in reality.

"They could at least put in some handrails." Isaac remarked as the four of them approached a grand holographic terminal with thousands of distinct shimmering sections arranged like some abstract art.

"This is it, Halo's control centre." John could not help but stare in awe at the sheer scale of it all. "That terminal, try there." Reaching back John pulled Cortana from his neural implant and slotted her into an indistinct holographic section of the terminal highlighted by Cortana. As the data chip containing the AI came into contact the area suddenly became sharper and rapidly conformed to the Human architecture.

As soon as she was inserted into the system Cortana's avatar appeared before them arching her back and gasping as lines of multicoloured code ran across her body in a dizzying display.

"You okay there Cortana?" Isaac asked from behind John.

"Never been better!" Cortana smiled earnestly and closed her eyes as she spread her arms. "You can't imagine the wealth of information, the knowledge, so much so fast. It's glorious!"

"So, what kind of weapon is it?" John asked trying to focus the AI on the mission.

"What are you talking about?" Cortana glared down at John as she put her hands on her hips.

"The ring, how do we use it against the Covenant?" Vinh interjected the worried edge to her voice only noticeable to the Spartans that had known her since childhood.

"Halo is not a cudgel you barbarians its something else." Cortana looked off into the distance her tone changing. "Something much more important."

"Barbarians?" William muttered in disbelief but Cortana continued.

"The Covenant were right, this place was built by the forerunners. Give me a second to access." The four Spartians slowly turned to look at each other and back to cortana as the AI's avatar covered its 'eyes'.

"Yes the Forerunners built this place what they designated a fortress world in order too..." There was a pause, John had never heard Cortana speak to them like that. William stepped forward to castigate her when Cortana cut him off.

"No! That can't be, oh those Covenant fools. There must have been signs."

"Slow down." John stepped forward and raised his hands in a calming motion. "You're losing me."

"The Covenant found something." Her eyes widened in horror "The Inquisitor, she found something buried in this ring, something horrible. The Covenant are afraid, in a panic there are accusations..."

"Something buried?" Vinh tried to focus the horrified AI.

"Oh no, they are going to be cut off, why are they going back down! Keyes, the Inquisitor! They will be surrounded!"

"The Captain? What is goi-"

"There is no time! Get out! I will remain here, find Keyes and the Inquisitor and stop them!" John saw a string of coordinates appear in his peripheral vision on his helmet as the four Spartains turned and began to run.

"Quickly before it's too late!" Cortana managed to shout after them.

* * *

Ţ̸̦͇͚̠̬̀͌̍̓͋̌̎̊͋̃̍͒̚͝͝ͅỏ̸̡̫͉̫̬̰̖̫̮͖̞̘͍͌̒̉̈́͋̉̍̇̓̊͘͜͝g̷̢̢͕̻̬͖͉̭̹̫̙̟̲̰̈́͗̽̋͜͝ẽ̴̞̣̙̣t̵̡͙̯͆̉̎̀̒͌͛̈́̋ḧ̴̳̾̇͊̓͑͠è̷̛̪̼̫̦͍͖̯̞̀͛͂̅͑͐̓̚̕͘͝ͅr̵̢̛͉͖͉͍̗̪͕̜̗͙̻͈̝̮̍̃̆̑͊̆͑̑̐͋͑͝

A terrible hunger. Deep, insidious and boundless in its intensity filled Twilight's very being. She found herself unable to move or see, even thinking was difficult. Without warning a vision presented itself, a thought or memory ripped from her mind.

_...She was sitting in a soft wooden chair her feet touching the soft yellowish sand as she looked out across the Pacific. Gulls overhead as she reclined..._

Loss, a part of her gone, torn away and discarded. No, not her? Not gone, discarded by the predator, she collected the scraps of memory holding the precious things close.

_...He was standing before a disappointed mother castigating him, overwhelming guilt over his inability to keep the book stable in his arcane grip..._

Twilight was not alone, he was with another, she, they.

_...her first kiss, she pressed her lips to the women cupping her head in her hand and pressing against her, feeling the moment for as long as it would last..._

They, together in darkness.

_...He was alone as he often was, only the recorded chanting within this holy place to bring him comfort, to know he walked a great journey was one of the only things that gave him strength..._

The hunger was the other and all they had was each other.

_...The first time she killed another human being, during the riots on Charybdis IX. she smelled blood, and her hands shook as she held the rifle. She could feel the heat of the weapon's barrel..._

Together they worked, the predator and its hunger kept at bay though the agonising pain of lost personhood.

_...The sickening smell of lilacs and lilies as she stood over her father's coffin..._

He was her shield, she was his sword.

_...He looked down at the cracking egg before him and saw his little brothers eyes for the first time..._

Years of experience bleeding away as he withstood attack after attack, the honed and steeled mind of a unicorn striking out against the Predator giving them moments of fleeting clarity.

_...She grinned around the unlit pipe her fingers drumming against the armrest as her ship pushed itself beyond its ability, the metal screaming all about her..._

A dim light in the dark hunger, distant and pale but they rushed to it the hunger screaming in defyance.

_...She felt her heart quicken as she held her daughter for the first time..._

They reached the light, the fading sanity in endless hunger.

But the Predator was upon them.

* * *

Gabby let out a muffled groan as she slowly returned to the waking world, she tried to stretch out but found herself once again restrained but this time by Covenant manacles that were magnetically locked to the ground. She opened her eyes, or tried to. Her left eye was swollen shut and whenever she tried to move her beak it sent a dull throbbing pain shooting through her face.

"What do you feed your Demons? By Celestia's rump my face feels like I insulted a _yak's _grandmother." Gabby felt herself smiling despite her situation, the euphoria of still being alive despite it all. She would feel better if the Human would stop pointing a shotgun at her face however.

The man that was snogging the changeling was stood over her, a glance about her new, more restrictive, accommodation showed that she had him all to herself. With the sounds of battle still raging in the distance she could not have been out for long.

"You were about to say something before... Before that glowing green stuff hit you." He was pale, more than he was before anyway.

"I was about to shout 'Changeling' yes, not sure what I was trying to accomplish but then again I had just had a lovely dance with your cyborg so I resolve the right to make pointlessly dramatic statements. How is she by the way?"

"Changeling, is that what they are called? She wanted to speak to me, I sent her away. I can't- I just can't." Gabby frowned, or at least tried to, she was woefully asymmetrical at the moment.

"Not the Changeling you twit, the Spartan" Markus stared at her for a moment.

"She... is fine? You broke the helmet."

"Obviously."

"She left to fight the Covenant She told us to secure you and left."

"I hate it when they leave while you are asleep."

"What?"

"Nevermind, You wanted to ask me something?" Markus frowned trying to collect his thoughts after being derailed by the sardonic griffon.

"The Changeling sh-" Gabby cut Markus off as she pressed her sore face to the cool metal floor.

"Yeah, emotivores or as I like to call them, nasty parasites. Shapeshifters too, don't tell anyone it's a state secret" Markus slowly lowered the shotgun and looked away, he was within beak distance but Gabby felt somewhat bad for the poor sod so she resolved to find a way to escape without biting his leg off.

"The Spartan said that orders are to work with the Changelings, that they are allies." Gabby let out a dismissive snort.

"So long as they get to eat and replace you I suppose they will be your best friends." The man set down the shotgun and looked around. In the distance gunfire and the screech of falling plasma mortars were still ringing out.

"Eat us? You can't be serious."

"What part of emotivore don't you understand?" There was a pregnant pause as she waited for his response.

"I don't know what that means."

"It means that they eat your feelings, it's all just magic to them and they need it to live."

"Magic, like when you froze everything?" Gabby shook her head.

"No that is like eating fire, they can't just eat magic just like we can't just eat a sun, we get energy from secondary or tertiary sources right? It has to be processed. So little Markus sucks up magic from the air like everything does, and then the parasite comes along and sucks it out of you in the form of 'love'. You are like a giant nipple." Again Gabby had to wait for Markus to process her words.

"Everything has magic, what do you mean by that?"

"Luna preserve me. Look, everything that is alive is made of reactive elements and magic it's like five year old stuff."

"I don't think it's quite that simple th-"

"Listen we could argue until magic fits into your little cave-ape scientific framework or we can talk about Changelings shapeshifting into your queen or whatever." Markus glared at her for the insult but relented. If the Griffon was telling the truth and she was not with the Covenant, that her presence was incidental. Then he needed to find out what she knew about the Changelings.

"Okay tell me everything you know."

* * *

Gilda stalked through the halls as she did her best to ignore the terrified screams of the dying that rang out through the thick bulkheads, the synthetic pads on the paws of her armour were slick with blue and red gore.

The monstrous horde had torn through defenceless crewmen and menial workers like a knife through butter. Rare signs of resistance told a bleak story. Plasma scoring across walls in a panicked spray, ponies and unggoy too mangled to be of use to the monsters left in pained death throes after fighting with all the strength they had to survive the attack.

Sections of the ship closer to the Engine room where dedicated to large scale hydroponics. A very labour intensive region of the ship. Caught in the middle of a shift change the crew had been set upon by the creatures, killed and reanimated in a fashion so horrific it conjured up tales of the mythical war of the sun and moon, tales of dark magic and terrible beings that predated Equestria.

Gilda pushed onwards, her path was mostly unimpeded and what bodies the attackers had left to roam about were uncoordinated and equipped to deal with the griffon as she fought and raced her way to the engine citadel. Whatever intelligence the attackers possessed she could not discount the idea that they could access ship systems, certainly not when they had shown demonstrable coordination and intelligence by focussing there attention on the engineering section, however weather the goal was to gain access to the ship systems or simply to attack the greatest concentration of people Gilda had no idea.

"_G we got problems up here, looks like the communication system was scuppered somehow, we are receiving just fine by we can't send updates to the fleet. They still think its a Human attack and have sent a single dropship."_ Gilda looked out at a vast space with dozens of large tanks that should hold tens of thousands of fish but instead held a pale yellow water with unsettling shapes moving about just beyond perceptive range.

"I am almost at the engine control center, it's a massacre down here Dash."

"_I can see, the Legate disappeared. He snuck off while I was managing the security force and he is no longer showing up in the ship network, slippery bucking creep likely has a safe room somewhere. Anyway you are going to have to seal up your suit, I am going to try to vent atmosphere in sections of the ship we don't control"_ Gilda snapped her head back as she felt eyes on the back of her neck, but saw nothing. Just the pooled blood on the ground and cloudy tanks.

"Dash there are thousan-"

"_They are dead G, it's just you back there. Engine room is quiet and the security team back there is not responding, you see something kill it. If you find that Legate drag him back here and make it painful, most of the ship is locked down and we need his codes to gain access. The Duchess also had the codes but she was in the section you are in now, no idea where but her workstation was right along the route the monsters took." _

"How the buck did they spread through the ship so quickly? I was chasing them the entire way!" Gilda stopped and placed her rifle onto the ground to activate the seals over her armoured suit. The air purification runes could offer her days of breathable air but she would have to be careful to keep them from getting damaged. Her suit was not rated for void combat.

"_It's like a wave, the harder they pushed the more they had to push with. This is feathering necromancer shit G. Civs up here are freaking out. Unless we get this under control we won't be getting off the ship, no escape pods and no transports."_ There was a splash somewhere in the room and Gilda spun about shifting though vision settings on her helmet as she reached for her rifle, she was not alone.

"_Uhh G, Cam...n yo...ctio...ead. You need...hurry...control ce...Duch... be...GIL!"_ With a thought Gilda dismissed the communication. The interference was not normal, rather than the static of conventional jamming or the ringing of magical interference it almost sounded like whispers, garbled and so disjointed as to be impossible to understand.

A wet thud, followed by dripping and a clip-clop, as hooves met bloodied floor. Gilda turned to meet the sound as she sholdered her rifle. From around one of the massive tanks stalked a unicorn, she had the dark blue and gold trimmed uniform of the Equestrian Merchant navy but it had seen better days. It clung to her bloated body wet and soiled by a rotten yellow fluid. The tightly fit uniform bulged and yellowed almost hairless flesh poking out from rips and tears in the clothing.

Her body was not as grotesquely deformed as others had been, her yellowed eyes met Gilda's even though her reflective faceplate and bore a maniacal intelligence. Her mouth was forced open and from her broken jaw jutted red feelers that snapped about as they tasted the air.

Gilda fired her rifle, it was unloaded and only the magical charge normally used to activate enchanted rounds was sent across the room but even that should have been enough to rip apart the corpse that had once been the ships Duchess Captain.

The dead Unicorn lit its horn a dull yellow to form a circular shield that rippled and flowed in a madness inducing manor. The energy that should have ripped the monster asunder was directed to the sides and impacted into the side of the great fish tank. With a tremendous crash the tank ruptured and pale grey water poured out in a torrent. In the middle of the tank a great mass of rotten flesh spasmed, thousands of fish collected into a single ball of eyes, teeth and thrashing tendrils.

Gilda expertly opened the breach of her rifle and slammed a shieldbreaker round home before rapidly charging the rifle with her own power and sighting in on the Duchess again. The ball of reanimated fish pulsed as it dragged itself towards Gilda maddly gnashing its millions of teeth. With an explosion that rattled the intact tanks throughout the room the rifle was discharged again.

In a flash of sickly yellow light the Duchess was gone and the round thundered through a dozen more tanks before stopping imbedded halfway through a ship bulkhead. Gilda did not have time to stare transfixed at the impossible mastery of such a difficult magical art, only Unicorns of Twilights caliber could even attempt to throw themselves into slipspace let alone use the ability to move around realspace with terrifying speed.

Darting through the shin deep water Gilda dodged away from a tentacle that whipped out to strike her. Neatly she twisted her body and brought the butt of her rifle around with enough force to sever the abomination's limb with crushing power alone. Before she could react her shields flared up as the hen was staggered by a barrage of magical attacks from behind. Gilda had the presence of mind to throw herself into the air before her shielding failed and flipped her body with incredible strain to kick off against the ceiling high above.

The Duchess stared up at her with its yellowed eyes and snapping feelers as it lit its horn again to inflict another barrage of magic it had no right possessing at Gilda. But at the last possible moment she flared her wings and threw herself to the ground dodging the bolts of destructive force. Reaching to her flank Gilda pulled a small blue orb and pressed the ignition, in her hand the grenade lit up in brilliant bright blue and Gilda threw it with an eagles screech as the Duchess lit its horn to teleport away.

With a flash the Unicorn was gone and a moment later there was an explosion of superheated plasma somewhere on the other side of the room. Gilda rolled her neck as she dodged away from the abominations pulling themselves towards her and made her way out of the fish farm. She avoided rather then attacked the masses of rotten fish, she was unsure if such a twisted form could even be killed and she certainly had no idea where to start.

"_...lda! Gilda! Oh buck please be okay."_ Stepping out into the hall Gilda continued onto the engine control center.

"I hear you Dash, there was a dead unicorn jamming the coms, killed it. Do you think the monsters have some sort of collective intelligence necromancer army thing going on?" A door down the hall opened and the decayed form of infected Unggoy wielding plasma pistols filled the air in front of her with superheated green plasma.

"_This is a feathering nightmare so I don't see why not!"_

"Yeah I think that is what's going on. They seem to know I am coming for them and are sending forces to slow me down. Plus that Unicorn knew spells it could never have known, I am guessing we had an unlicensed mage on the ship somewhere that got eaten. Consider all dead Unicorns priority targets." Gilda rushed down the hall dodging the hail of plasma fire and forcing the Unggoy into a melee they could not win.

"_Had a group of them try to attack the command deck but they were not using anything more then levitation to throw jagged metal and shooting plasma pistols. Whatever you encountered it was a special case" _Gilda crushed the last dead Unggoy and continued.

"Lets hope you are right Dash."

* * *

September 21st 2552, Deployment+58:36:31 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)

"This is it, let's hope Cortana was on point with the coordinates. Just a few clicks upspin of a Covenant weapons cache _Victor _dropped Silva off at, he is not responding to my pings so I can only assume he is loitering somewhere with systems dark. I will get some hang time whi- Oh shit!" Carol Rawley read and reread the report that had popped up in her Pelicans computer as her co pilot expertly landed the bird.

"Everything okay Foe Hammer?" Issac shook away the dulling fuzz that descended upon campaigners after waking up from a much needed nap.

"Chief I am getting an update on the battlenet from Wellsley, that Super Carrier in orbit deployed a bunch of drop pods a few hours ago, they are going to be hitting all over this region soon and dropships are not far behind. Looking like over two hundred elites in the first wave and twenty four dropships following them in, whatever is going on with this 'Inquisitor' the Covies are riled up something fierce!"

"Is our landing zone clear?" John quickly took inventory of his teams equipment, three MA5B Assault Rifles, one M90 Shotgun, an S2 variant of the Anti-Matériel rifle, a SPNKr Rocket Launcher and two Magnum Sidearms. Combined with all the ammunition that his team could effectively carry he was confident that they could secure a landing zone if the situation demanded but they simply did not have the capacity to deal with hundreds of Covenant in an unknown battlefield without support, intel or Cortana.

"LZ is clear Chief but you got twenty minutes before the first wave hits and fifty before extracting you is impossible!" Blue team thundered out from the dropship the moment it landed, splashing down into the marshy earth with a squelch and sinking somewhat into the watery mud.

"Keep her warm and ready for dustoff Foe Hammer." Issac took up the vanguard position as the team melted into the dense flora, darkness and muted colours rendering blue team practically invisible as they moved forward weapons at the ready.

With a screech Echo 419 ascended to a comfortable loitering altitude and the swamp was suddenly conspicuously quiet save for the gentle pitter-patter of rain. The trek to the structure Cortana had designated the last known location of Keyes and the enigmatic Covenant Inquisitor was slower than John would have liked given the wild and frankly unnavigable environment. The Spartains found themselves leaping up sheer muddy hills and running across ancient rotting fallen trees before spotting the brightly lit entrance to the structure.

There were two smouldering wrecks sat just within the mouth of the large rectangular entrance with a grunt prying at the armour plating to get into the internals while one of the Griffons described by the Spartan III's scanned the foliage with a large and deadly looking rifle, the pair of them were talking too quietly for Johns armour to translate, there was a pile of weapons and equipment on one side of the entrance and a large crackling fire were Covenant bodies slowly burned.

"The Covenant don't burn the dead." Vinh said as she crept into position, without her shielding she was forced to adopt a rearguard position.

"Could be a practice of the Griffons." John found himself replying, something was wrong and it was distracting him, he could not take his eyes away from the griffon as it scanned the treeline while chatting casually with the grunt.

"I have line of sight into the structure, looks like two elites and two more griffons inside, looks like they are getting ready for a walk." Blue team waited, John keenly aware that every second they waited brought the enemy reinforcements closer.

The two elites trotted up to the grunt as it pulled something from the wreckage, there was an exchange before the Unggoy handed over whatever he pulled out of the transport to one of the elites who then proceed to climb onto the back of one of the griffons while holding the glowing salvaged machinery close. With a mighty flap the griffon was suddenly airborne with its elite passenger and the unggoy started to dig into the next transport.

"Antigravity, to make the elites light enough for the griffons to carry?" Vinh proposed.

"Despite the fact that they should not be able to fly in the first place? Look at how big they are and how small the wings are." Issac said as he slowly and silently readied his weapons.

"They could carry more antigravity equipment we don't recognise." It took only a few seconds for the grunt to find the second piece of salvage and hand it over to the other elite John motened to his team to allow them to leave, a firefight might take longer than they could afford.

When the next elite and griffon pair left and only the grunt and griffon at the front of the structure remained, after a few more words the grunt mounted the griffon and the pair flew away.

The team cleared the open ground to the mouth of the structure rapidly with only sixteen minutes left the four of them quickly cleared the main room before examining the battlefield. Plasma scoring marked the walls in mad patterns, dozens of weapons, jackal shields and sections of armour had been abandoned with the owners piled up into the fire.

In the middle of the room there was a wide transparent platform with a forerunner control panel that had been destroyed, the struts holding it into the air had been melted with plasma and then ripped away. Cortana's marker led down but with no way of activating the elevator John considered withdrawing.

Suddenly there was a magnetic click and the platform began to descend, thinking quickly John leapt onto the platform and his team quickly joined him, reading their weapons they descended into the darkness.

* * *

Ţ̵͍̩̭̺̯̰͎͇͇̰͕͋̑̇̄̓̀̿̆̋̊͘̕͜ͅh̸̨̛̠͉̥̫̻̲̟͔̀̒̀͒̋̿͛̈̓͝e̴̠̬̙̖̪̋͋̒̀͗ ̸̧͎̮͉͈̙͍́̾͆ͅM̴̡͚̮̗̼̲̝͔̤̱̰͈͎̪̐̔̉̀̈́̍͐́̔̅̈́͠ȃ̷͈̲̈́͊̈́̽̂̂̌͐̅̓͌͒̚ņ̸̛͇̝̩̗̺͈̹̈́̏̉t̷̹͉̟͊̏̋̓͆̇̉̒̀͋̕͝l̷͉̆̈̈́̄͛́͋̈́̆͗ȩ̶̝̪͎̤̤͕̳͛̎͑̏̽̈̀́̇̓̇̕͘

"No sister, not quite yet.

Time and war and uncontrollable rage has made us less than we were.

We offer you a gift you never asked for, but it is your Responsibility.

To the others, you are too young to remember.

To replace chaos with order and call it goodness.

Once more we will meddle, it is our nature, your nature.

When we turned away to give the curse upon another.

They turned away and forgot all we were.

Beloved and scorned, lost to time.

A lifetime ago they bore us nothing but hate.

Ten thousand years ago they silenced the galaxy.

But that was not our doom.

You have the potential to carry our legacy.

For this we give you the mantle with the last of our strength.

They never truly understood it.

You stand at a crossroads.

Harmony or Responsibility.

Regardless you shall be the first to carry it with another.

From this universe wipe the stain of our corpse away.

Awaken."


	17. Chapter Sixteen

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

September 22nd 2552

Agony, a fire licking across an ill defined body with an intensity that left no room for coherent thought. Then it was gone, utterly and completely gone. Pain that had become a constant companion in life, a sore back, old scars or an old hoofball injury that had never quite been bad enough to bother her. Pain that had become familiar, a companion that hurt all the more for its absence. Muscles rippled with undeserved might and her skin and fur felt as soft as fine silk, almost fluid in its perfection.

Twilight opened her eyes, there was not a moment of adjustment, not a single instant of mortal confusion. One moment she was blind and the next she could see. Bright rich purples surrounded her on all sides as she stood tall in the middle of a raised section overlooking the bridge of a warship. Across the walls there were solid masses of yellowish rot leading up into a great tumor in the middle of the raised surface just behind her that was connected to the ceiling, walls and floor by taut cables of green muscle.

Ash and molten flesh dripped from a large gorge in its middle as fire consumed the abomination, the entire thing starting to deflate as it burned uncontrollably from the inside, corpses that melted nightmarishly into its irregular form burning away leaving nothing but rotten and twisted bones leeched of any strength.

With an unceremonious thud a pair of skulls hit the ground, fused together in an agonised scream Twilight felt an odd sense of detachment as she noted the horn jutting out of one side of the fused bone.

A polite chime rang out as one of the doors to the bridge opened and from it surged two sangheili and a human infected by the flood. They let out enraged garbled screams as they dashed forwards discharging weapons into the air in a manic attempt to kill the interloper. Twilight felt herself turn to face the threat, her muscles moving in a way she had never before experienced a strange weight on her back as she posed to meet the charge.

A shield, one of her brothers formulations, startlingly beautiful in its simplicity but demanding incredible power to bring into reality. It shimmered before her and deflected the seven point six two millimeter rounds spat out from the MA5B rifle held by the lead flood's host. The powerful armour piercing rounds thudding into the shield and turning into little metal mushrooms before trickling to the ground.

With a thought Twilight created a condensed ball of matter and sent it curving around the shield to smack into the middle of the flood form before bursting outwards like a grenade, shards of magical matter dissipating as they tore through diseased flesh. As the form staggered and fell to the ground Twilight reached out and grasped the rifle it had carried before it could hit the ground and pulled it back towards herself.

Bracing the rifle against the edge of the flat shield floating before her Twilight sent two controlled bursts of steel tipped rounds into the sangheili flood hosts arresting the charge. With practiced ease Twilight ejected the nearly spent magazine and collected fresh magazines from the twitching corpse on the ramp leading up to her. It was only after she had reloaded her pilfered weapon and tried to pocket her spare magazines that she noticed she was naked.

Sighing she left the spare magazines floating in a lazy orbit around her head careful to keep them from restricting her vision. Looking about Twilight saw her pipe discarded on the edge of the platform. She quickly pulled it up to her face to inspect it and found that it was still loaded from the last time she used it. With a flash a flickering dot of purple fire floated next to her and Twilight set the pipe in her mouth gently clutching the bit between her teeth as she carefully lit the tobacco while inhaling.

Twilight allowed herself a moment to enjoy the familiar warmth filling her lungs before shifting the pipe to the corner of her mouth and working through the formula in her head. With a flash the mare was gone, only a cloud of exhaled smoke left twisting in the air.

* * *

"... Which means that any organism with sufficient mass and cognitive capability is a potential vector." In a burst of golden shimmering light 343 Guilty Spark and Amanda appeared on the long bridge leading to Halo's control console.

"The risk is made even greater since I have detected artifacts using neural physics to be present on the ring, such formidable devices should have been destroyed with the last activation of the array, I am glad that some have survived even if they are currently at risk of falling into the hands of the flood." Amanda looked up at the glowing ball.

"Neural physics?"

"Come on we cannot dawdle, with every moment the containment breach grows more severe" with a bobbing glide characteristic of the ancient intelligence guilty spark began to hum to himself as he approached the holographic console at the end of the room followed by the Spartan 'Reclamer'. The Forerunner construct twisted about as he hovered over the holographic console his eye seeming to shine brighter for a moment as he regarded the armoured women approaching him.

"Unfortunately my role in this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units from my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with the Core." Guilty Spark hovered closer to Amanda and presented the index in a crackling antigravity field "That final step is reserved for you Reclaimer."

"How does this work? How do I control the array?" Amanda slowly reached forward and plucked the Index from the air as the glowing orb began to hover higher to give her space.

"The firing parameters are pre selected from successful simulations for the best possible lethality, you will simply have to insert the Index and activate the firing sequence." Amanda could see the correct location, a T shaped slot that would fit the Index perfectly.

"It's set to destroy the flood, what about the Covenant?" Guilty Spark twisted to the side in confusion.

"While the array could be recalibrated to target particular Covenant species that is not the intended use of the array and would take a projected sixty one thousand three hundred and twenty hours of simulations and would likely still fail to meet galactic saturation."

"After we destroy the flood we-" with a thundering magnetic clack the door to the control room began to slide open and Amanda spun about drawing her rifle and aiming at the huge entrance.

"This is most improper! Access to the control room is strictly restricted to Reclaimers, this is absolutely against protocol!" Amanda crouched, with an utter lack of anything resembling cover she would have to rely upon her marksmanship to deal with whatever came through that door.

When the door had opened wide enough the Spartan sent a burst of armour piercing rounds at the mulberry speck though a widening gap in the door. There was a flash of bright purple light followed by a barrage of thuds and metallic ricochets. After a moment the door was fully opened and in the middle of the giant corridor stood the Covenant Inquisitor with a glowing rounded purple shield before her and an unamused glare for the Spartan.

"Care to explain why you tried to shoot me Lieutenant?" The equine took a step forward as she exhaled a plume of smoke, it was then that Amanda noted the absurdity of the alien horse smoking a pipe.

"Smoking is absolutely forbidden in critical command and control facilities! Put out your recreational implement this instant!" Guilty Spark zipped forward to berate the Covenant unicorn as Amanda reached for a grenade at her belt. The Inquisitor still had a shimmering purple shield between her and Amanda but seemed to be focused on the sputtering angry little orb. With a rapid overarm throw the Spartan sent the grenade towards the alien and aimed her rifle to send another burst of armour piercing rounds into her when her heart suddenly started to thump in her chest.

Her armours friend or foe identification system was green, with an ID hovering over the unicorn. She shook in place as she read and reread the text.

CPT.

* * *

"Go, go, go!" Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadumee Thundered down the ramp of the phantom. He ran abreast with his team as they thundered into the expansive and eerily still hanger bay.

As the last foot found the ground there was a buzz from the communicator built into the assault pattern helmet Rtas had chosen for the mission.

"_When you are ready for extraction contact me and I will return, Glorious Advance out."_ Rtas did not miss a step and the soldiers under his command rapidly took up sightlines across the hanger calling out when they had secured there sector.

"Secured!" Rtas was the last voice to join the choir as he neatly swept his plasma rifle across the room looking for any Human ambushes, if any threat remained it was likely deeper in the ship. "The hanger is ours. Use the forward doors and move to the bridge, four by four cover pattern."

"Uhhh, Commander? I found something." Rtas strode forward to meet one of his Unggoy as the first two teams advanced towards the bridge. "At least eight Unggoy died here and were dragged through this door."

"I had no idea that Humans were interested in the dead? Perhaps they are barbaric enough to consume the fallen?" Rtas blinked and crouched to the ground. The blood trail leading to the bridge was fresh but there was a dried pool of blue blood under it with neat paw prints and a trail leading to one of the ventilation systems towards the rear of the ship.

"A Griffons prints, the Equestrians met the first boarding and later Unngoy had an encounter with the Humans?" The sangheili behind Rtas shook his head as he speculated. "What happened, did the humans attack the rear sections first and then move on the bridge?" With a shrug Rtas stood.

"We will not find our answers here, we press on to the bridge." With a confidant stride he lead is team forward. Something was deeply wrong here.

* * *

"Lieutenant! What is wrong with you!?" As the deadly ball flew in a perfect arc through the air Twilight's eyes snapped to it and redirected it over the side of the walkway with a flash of her horn, far below them the grenade detonated. Steeling herself Amanda sent another burst of gunfire suppressing the flood of warnings from her armour as it protested against shooting a superior officer.

"What did you do to the Captain!?" Amanda advanced as Twilight retreated the alien shield holding firm against the withering fire from her rifle.

"Jacob? He is right-" Twilight glanced about with a frown on her face. "He was right, right with me." her voice cracked as Amanda ran dry and reloaded her weapon with practiced ease. "What- where could he have gone?"

"You have his cybernetics wh-" Amanda was thrown backwards by a burst of furious purple energy and a piercing panicked scream.

"Stay away from me!" In a smooth motion the Spartan was on her feet again putting out an arm to catch her balance as the Inquisitor flared her wings and lit her horn with a plume of angry purple fire. "I am alive! I am Twilight Sparkle service number zero one nine two-" The mare let out a panicked squeak and fell to the ground as she violently pressed her hooves to her mouth.

"No no no no no. Please no its not real." Amanda twisted to the side and sent another burst into the prone mare and the flat shield separating them began to shimmer violently ask cracks began to dot its surface. With a shriek of rage Twilight was gone, Amanda felt the displaced air play over her back and twisted to the side dodging out of the way of the savage buck aimed at her spine.

The pair of them turned and rapidly backpedaled as they unloaded rifles at each other chipping away at the shields protecting the other, magical and conventional shields crackling under the strain of each others attacks.

"Please cease this pointless combat! Every moment we wait the Flood outbreak spirals out of control, we have to act before the infection spreads beyond this installation!"

* * *

Rtas held up a clenched fist as he approached the Bridge and his team halted as the Commander addressed the strange readings in his combat display.

"One life form ahead, I am getting some strange readings." Rtas looked about the room before him, it was an expansive bath house adjacent to the bridge deck, with the elevator locked down they had to take a roundabout way to the critical objective. "Some sort of parasite infection that does not match anything in our database."

"A biological weapon?!" One of his Unggoy shouted in surprise. The diminutive soldier was secured from such an attack by his breathing apparatus but Rtas had not ensured his warriors were secured from such dishonorable weapons. Any local equipment to secure one from the void or a hostile atmosphere would be suited to an Equestrian pony or an Unggoy. Utterly useless to him.

"Take heart, our faith will shield us from this insidious weapon!" The commander found himself calling out as he advanced into the still bathhouse, the ship had not been host to any of the other ships so the facility was not in a state of readiness when the attack had taken place but a thick layer of dried blue and red blood indicated that Equestrian and Covenant workers had been working here or had fled from the attack only to be cut down. Again any body had been stolen away for some inscrutable reason. "Sub commander, take the first squad and the Unggoy and move through the side rooms, I will take the second squad and meet the life form. If it is hostile we shall eliminate it."

Rtas moved forward in the vanguard his plasma rifle at the ready as they stepped between empty baths set into the ground a thin layer of water coating everything and only the flickering lights to illuminate his way. At regular intervals in the grand room there was a large ornate door in the Equestrian style leading to the maze of side rooms, and storage spaces required to keep such a grand facility functioning.

A low broken growl, wrong somehow with an edge to it, filled the room and Rtas' saw the shifting of shadows as something moved in the darkness at the edge of the room. He ordered his team to halt and with a thought activated his armours shoulder mounted light. Batlike wings that had been torn apart, turned ragged and coated with a layer of green slime, sections of them bulged horribly as if they contained an insidious tumor.

Its body fared even worse, once the lean from of an Equestrian Manticore kept for its majesty and value in the grand sport of hunting now the giant predator had gouges dug from its body that gave way to a rotting, yellowed flesh underneath. Its face was lax and pushed to the side as a mass of twisting and snapping tentacles with red sensory organs pointed right at him while tasting the air.

"This is no human attack." Rtas lifted his plasma rifle as the monster began to lumber towards him. "All soldiers destroy the Manticore!"

Bolts of superheated plasma played across the Manticores side as the Sanghili dove to the side into a roll to avoid the deadly sting of its tail. It was when the Unggoy and his soldiers had moved into a rough circle around the beast to pepper it with fire that one of the vents high overhead burst open and little clicking balls of razor sharp tentacles and bright red feelers fell upon his men.

In an instant the battle turned into a rout as his soldiers darted about falling and swinging weapons wildly to attack the smaller parasites that tried to cling to them. Ripping into exposed tissue and sending panicked soldiers to the ground screaming in agony. Igniting his plasma sword Rtas charged forward cutting through the smaller parasites as they lept at him before twisting expertly to dodge the Manticores deadly attack. Caching his balance now that he was past the guard of the infected monster Rtas dove his blade into its neck and pulled upwards sending the beast thudding into the ground as he cut through its spine.

"Follow me! Go Go Go!" He called out as the door they had entered through burst open and another swarm of the small parasites scuttled though followed by a stampede of rotting and dead Ponies. The survivors quickly rallied to him and formed a rough squire with the Unggoy in the middle surrounded by sword wielding Sanghili. They charged desperately away from the horde and towards the bridge. The moment his team had left the baths hall Rtas slammed the emergency lock and the door slid closed.

"We must continue on, the bridge is not far." Rtas nodded at his sub commander.

The beleaguered group made their way through the twisting halls that comprised the secondary route to the bridge. In places blood lined the walls, masses of red, blue and the yellow rot of the infected.

Rtas led his team around another corner when a flurry of burning green bolts slammed into him causing his shields to flare, he quickly darted back out of the line of fire.

"You are not getting me! I will kill you all!" Hearing the panicked voice Rtas held up a hand to prevent his team from engaging his assailant and called out.

"We are not here to get you! I am Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadumee. I am present to aid you!" There was a pause and some muffled voices down the hall. A moment later a door opened and he heard the footsteps of a newcomer.

"I am Royal Cloudsdale Lancer Major Rainbow Dash! Come around that corner and keep your hands where I can see them." With a glance to his Sub Commander Rtas clamped his weapons to his armour and held up his hands as he stepped around the corner and finally got a good look at the defences.

Rubble had been piled up and fused together with intense heat to form a barricade that Rtas would have to duck down and turn to his side to pass though, to the sides there were slits that weapons could be fired from into the long hall with the bridge's blast door just behind the formidable barricade.

Major Rainbow Dash had chosen to stand in the open to meet him but though the slits he could see the worried and tired faces of several unicorns and an Unggoy.

"As you can see, I am not one of the monsters that infest this ship." Rainbow nodded.

"Yes, not quite ugly enough for that, come on then, don't take offence at High Standard she has good reason to shoot anything that comes around that corner."

"Of course" Rtas nodded to his men who quickly moved around the corner to join him as he approached the Bridge. Rtas and his forces entered the bridge finding that beyond the ragged force defending the long corridor there were dozens of wounded Unggoy and Ponies nursing wounds in out of the way sections of the room. He did his best to ignore the still bodies pushed to the farthest corner.

"About time you lot showed up! This situation is a bucking mess, some sort of parasite that reanimates corpses came off of that ring and this entire ship is a biohazard zone, at this point I would be activating the self destruct but that system was disabled." The armoured pegasus spun about neatly and looked up at Rtas. "So we are going to have to go down to the engine room and make sure this mess cleans itself up explosively, after you call in your transport to get the civilians out of course."

"Our orders are to manage the situation and secure the safety of the Legate." He saw that most of the consoles in the room had been destroyed with only a single main command console still active and managed by an Unggoy that stared blankly into space.

"That creep? No idea where he went but he has been locking down the ship from somewhere. Quite frankly I don't give a buck about that waste of air so how about you call in that ship now." Rtas was taken aback at the direct order from the Equestrian and carefully thought about how he would respond.

"I would like to see you try to force us to do anything little pony!" Rtas winced and looked to the side as his sub commander laughed at the Pegasus.

"We will see how funny you find this when my hoof breaks the sound barrier on your face." At that his sub commander activated his energy sword and leered dangerously down at the mare.

"You would not survive the attempt."

"Silence!" Rtas shouted, glaring at the pair of them. "Think about your words before uttering them!" The two of them shared another glare before backing away. "Major, your concern for the Civilian presence is respectable but we only have one dropship in range we can contact, we need to ensure that all civilians are present before we leave this ship."

"I am supposed to let you waste lives for him!"

"You do not have a choice in the matter it is my duty to find him and should we die the dropship will never again dock with this vessel." The little mare let out a sequence of Equestrian curses before letting out a resigned sigh.

"I have a Griffon working her way to the engine room, most of the parasites seem to have collected in that area. While the engine room is sealed most of the rear of the ship is exposed to the void and I no longer have access to that system."

"That is because I have disabled all primary systems onboard the Infinite Succour" Rtas and Rainbow whirled around to look at the large holographic projection of the Legate that overlooked the entire bridge.

"Legate, please return to the bridge and allow us to activate the self destruct system to destroy this infestation." Rtas walked forward with his hands outstretched to talk sense into the Legate.

"I will not commander."

"Listen! This ship cannot be saved, do you know how many bodies this infection has taken? It's a deathtrap!" Rtas nodded at Rainbows words

"She is correct, we must destroy this ship to defeat our enemy."

"On that we agree Commander, but how can I trust you are not infected yourself? If I expose myself or open one system you might find a way to access other systems such as the slipspace controls." The Legate glanced between Rainbow and Rtas before continuing. "The Flood cannot be allowed to escape. You may be assisting it, I do not have accurate information on how quickly the infection spreads. Your men and the Equestrians are suspect."

"We are not Infected you idiot!"

"While I would of course take your word for it Major in this case I am unable to do so, Commander, take your men and the survivors to a medical bay so I might examine you remotely."

"We don't have time for this, we have lost several men and we are low on ammunition and-"

"We can't move some of the people here!" Dash cut in "They are too hurt." Rainbow shouted her wings flared and face contorted in fury.

"Then they are lost." With that the communication cut off and Rainbow cursed again as she twisted about to buck against a console shattering the armoured plating in her frustration.

"Attack! Attack! They are coming again!" High Standard called out as she lifted three plasma pistols in her arcane grip while she screamed in panic as the haggered defenders rushed to meet the newest assault of the now named Flood. Without a word Rainbow and Rtas joined them.

* * *

Amanda pressed herself to the round using the thin rail along the edge of the walkway for what limited amount of cover it offered. She could see the Inquisitor doing the same. The pair of them watching each other intently through the transparent material that protected them.

"This is pointless, we need to deal with the flood!" The monitor overhead pleaded with the pair of them.

"He is right, the flood must be stopped." Her voice was quiet, scratchy from her panicked screams during the fight. Screams not directed at Amanda but at whatever she had done to Keyes. The Spartan reluctantly picked herself up as her shields recharged and slowly moved towards the control panel.

"You stay right there!" She warned the alien as she kept her rifle trained on her. With a quick glance she pulled the index from a magnetic clamp on her hip and slotted the device into the holographic terminal. She tried to keep her eyes on the Covenant but her gaze was drawn to the holographic console as the green index began to glow and from the console spinning disks of Forerunner text began to spin about Amanda. A low thrum began to sound out across the room before slowly pittering out.

"Odd, that wasn't supposed to happen." Guilty Spark remarked as there was a sudden flash of light and Cortana's holographic avatar appeared standing like a giant over the three of them.

"Oh, really?" With a gesture the monitor shuddered in the air before falling to the ground with a loud clang.

"Cortana!" Twilight shouted in surprise.

"I spent hours cooped up in here watching you toady about helping that thing get set to slit our throats!" The AI stood with hands on hips and after her eyes flicked to Twilight she added. "All of our throats." Amanda whirled around and held up an open hand to the AI.

"Cortana he is helping us against the flood. He is a friend."

"Oh, I didn't realize. He's your pal, is he? Your chum? Do you have any idea what that  
bastard almost made you do Lieutenant?" The Spartan paused and looked over at the Covenant, despite the assault rifle floating beside her she seemed content to watch how things played out.

"Yes," Amanda began. "Activate Halo's defenses and destroy the Flood. Which is why we brought the Index to the Control Center." Cortana's image plucked the Index out of its slot and held it out in front of her the Spartains mind boggling at the impossibility of the insubstantial hologram holding the very real device.

"You mean this?" With a buzz Guilty Spark flashed to life again and began to hover just off the floor.

"A construct in the core? That is absolutely unacceptable!" The Forerunner construct screamed out.

"Piss off." Cortana retorted her eyes glowing a dangerous red as she loomed over the trio.

"What impertinence! I shall purge you at once." The Monitor darted higher looking down at the Human AI as the constructs faced off against each other.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Cortana inquired as she waved the Index, then added the data contained within it to her memory the physical artifact destroyed with a thought.

"How dare you!" Spark exclaimed. "I'll-"

"Do what?" Cortana demanded. "I have the Index. You can float and sputter!"

"Enough!" The voice was powerful enough to be physically felt rippling over Amanda's armour as the Inquisitor stepped forward keeping the purple shield activated between her and the Spartan. "The Flood is spreading, it must be destroyed. If we activate Halo we can burn away this parasite!"

"You have no idea how this ring works, do you? Why the Forerunners built it? Halo doesn't kill Flood, it kills their food. Human, Covenant, whatever. You're all equally edible. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death. And that's exactly what Halo is designed to do. Wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don't believe me? Ask him!"

The ramifications of what Cortana said hit home, and she gripped her rifle tightly. Rounding on the Monitor she found her voice had a harsher edge then she intended. "Is it true?"

"More or less. This installation has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, but once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass and complex enough nerves system to sustain the Flood. But you already knew that." The AI continued contritely. The little device sounded genuinely puzzled. "I mean, how couldn't you?"

"Left out that little detail, did he?"

"We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter," the Monitor said defensively. "You were with me each step of the way as we managed the process." The Covenant Inquisitor ears twisted about detecting a sound outside of Amanda's range of hearing.

"Below us, something is coming up."

"I am detecting movement" Cortana agreed. "Lieutenant my chip is in the console!"

"Why would you hesitate to do what you've already done?" Guilty Spark demanded his attention focused on the Spartan.

"We need to go," Cortana insisted. "Right now!"

"Last time you asked me if it were my choice, would I do it?" the Monitor continued, as a flock of hawklike roboting constructs arrayed themselves behind him, each of them humming quietly as a single yellow eye glared down at them. "Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. There is no choice. We must activate the ring."

"Get Cortana!" Twilight Sparkle shouted at the Human her shield that had been placed between her and the Spartain now turned outwards into a wide dome. Amanda having trouble processing the rapidly shifting loyalties in the room.

"Get, us, out of here!" Cortana said, her eyes tracking the Sentinels.

"If you are unwilling to help, I have already detected several others." Spark said conversationally. "Still, I must have the Index. Give your construct to me or I will be forced to take it from you."

The Spartan looked up at Spark and the machines arrayed in the air behind him. Reaching back she plucked the chip containing Cortana from the holographic terminal and slotted it home into the back of her neck. She stepped forward fighting her long honed instincts to stand beside Twilight Sparkle. "That's not going to happen."

"So be it," the Monitor said wearily. Then, in a comment directed to the Sentinels, he added "Save the Human's head. Dispose of the rest."

* * *

"Whatever happened here it was not pretty." John watched as Isaac used his enhanced image capturing attachment to scan the blood coated room. The walls, floor and even the ceiling high above them had red, blue and even yellow bloodstains, plasma burns and hundreds of brass casings littered the ground. "I am getting strange readings too, nothing in our database but there is a lot of it."

"Any clue what happened to Keyes? Or why they burned all the bodies?" Vinh slowly bent down and cocked her head "Hay John look at this." she stood back up with a ragged chunk of flesh and splintered bone, mulberry fur hanging limply and an unmistakably hoof shaped nail on one end.

"Must be that new alien the Helljumpers reported on the battlenet. Whatever got to him must have been real nasty, not much left." William glanced over his shoulder, his head snapping about and his weapon at the ready. Good, John could feel eyes in the back of his head and it was nice to see that his squad felt the same way.

"Movement!" Issac hissed over the coms and the team fell into position aiming down a dark corridor at the end of the bloodied hall. After a moment the sound of footsteps could be heard and out of the darkness stumbled a panicked looking man in the black armour of an ODST.

Silva almost fell backwards as he entered the room and spun around a shotgun in his shaky grasp. John quickly stood up and called out to the man only for him to spin about with a startled scream and fire his shotgun wildly over john's head, none of the shotgun pellets connecting.

"C-chief? Is that you? What are you doing here!? Nevermind we have to return to Alpha Base right now the situation is fucked!" John slowly approached the man with his hands empty and palms forward.

"Calm down sir, what is going on? We are looking for Keyes, Cortana said he was here somewhere?" Silva blinked and licked his lips.

"Cortana? You have her with you?" Silva lowered his shotgun and staggered towards John. Despite his limp and haggard appearance the man looked unharmed, he was not even breathing heavily.

"No sir, she is in Halo's control center." John watched as the man's face stretched out into a repulsive and uncharacteristic grin.

"Excellent, we have to return to her so we can secure this installation! Keyes is not here, he must have been taken away by the Covenant." John paused and looked back at his team before nodding.

"Understood, we have some time before exfiltration is necessary that we can use to search for the Captain" Silva set his face in a repulsive sneer as he looked around at the Spartans but gave a curt nod before staggering behind them in an uncoordinated gait.

* * *

Beams of burning yellow light impacted the purple dome protecting Amanda and Twilight sending spiderwebs of burning cracks across the magical field as they impacted. Twilight grunted under the strain and redoubled her focus the light from her horn obscuring her face as Amanda drew the plasma pistol from her belt and charged up a projectile.

"Drop the shield!" she called out and Twilight did so jumping behind Amanda for protection as the Spartan sent and overcharged bolt of green plasma at one of the floating sentinels. The orb of green light impacted with a crackle and the Forerunner guardian was reduced to warped metal as it fell into the darkness below the walkway.

The Sentinels began to swarm forward as Twilight peppered them with armour piercing rounds and Amanda sent highly charged balls of screeching green plasma at the deadly flock. Under the concerted attack the Forerunner guardians were quickly cut down, some attempted to flank behind the two of them but their attacks were met with a powerful purple shield. When the last Sentinel struck the walkway in a brilliant explosion there was an awkward moment of tension between the Human and the Equestrian.

"So." Twilight looked over at the Spartan as she checked the ammo counter of her weapon, found it wanting and dropped the assault rifle unceremoniously. "You have a plan?"

"Yes," Cortana replied, her voice sounding out though the Mjolnier armour of the Spartan. "I do. We can't let the Monitor activate Halo. We have to stop him—we have to destroy Halo." Twilight stared open mouthed at the armoured women before her and lit her horn to catch her pipe as it fell. With a flash of her horn she relit the smoldering tobacco shaking her head as she considered where she could possibly acquire more despite the health risks Jacob knew about.

That was if she was even vulnerable to the damage smoking caused after Twilight and Jacob died. She tried not to think about it.

"I must be insane, this is heresy." The mare closed her eyes and let out a long suffering sigh. "How do you plan on doing that?"

"According to my analysis of the available data I believe the best course of action is somewhat risky."

"Of course" Amanda groaned.

"An explosion of sufficient size." Cortana explained. "Will help destabilize the ring and will cut through a number of primary systems. We need to trigger a detonation on a large scale, however. A starship's fusion reactors going critical would do the job."

"You want to use the _Pillar of Autumn!?_ You want to blow up m- Keyes ship!" Twilight held the pipe in her arcane grip and pointed the spout at the Spartan to punctuate her sentence.

"You have his command codes" It was not a question but Twilight lowered her head and looked to the side as she answered anyway.

"Yes."

"Good, then all we need to do is buy some time, acquire the Spartan team I sent to save you and get to the ship."

"Sounds like a walk in the park" Amanda grossed as she turned to leave the control center, the pair of them walking down the long corridor to the exit.

"What of the Oracle finds a way to activate Halo without the Index?" Twilight slowly let out a plume of smoke as she thought about the situation.

"Oracle?" Amanda looked down at Twilight.

"The annoying genocidal ball."

"Ah" Amanda nodded and activated the door leading to the winter canyons surrounding the control room as Cortana thought through the question posed.

"The machines in the canyons outside are Halo's primary firing mechanisms." Cortana began. "They consist of three phase pulse generators that amplify Halo's signal and allow it to fire deep into space. If we damage or destroy the generators, the Monitor will need to repair them before Halo can be used. That should buy us some time." Twilight nodded.

"And after that you are going to pick up the other Spartans, good luck." Twilight turned away from the Spartan as snow whirled about them and in the distance gunshots and plasma discharges could be heard as the Covenant and flood fought a desperate battle far below.

"Where are you running off too?" Amanda demanded.

"_The Pillar of Autumn_, Cortana should be able to triangulate the location using the... My cybernetics. There is a garrison there and I need to at least try to convince them to follow me before the Demons show up and all reason goes out the airlock."

"We will meet you there" Cortana's words were met with a curt nod before Twilight Sparkle disappeared in a flash of purple light.

"I'm marking the location of the nearest pulse generator with a nav point. We need to move and neutralize the device." Amanda turned to the battle below and began to jog towards it.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Halo, Equestrian Covenant: Book One by Shady Steps

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

September 22nd 2552

"British..." James stared down at the small metal box with its edges rounded before him and let out a quiet sigh as he decided how hungry he actually was. The fierce rumbling from his belly answered that question for him. He glanced up with a smile but Kore was staring listlessly into nothing.

"Its like they want to beat you over the head with it." He continued as he reached in and pulled out a small plastic packet with three teabags inside. "Its meant to be a day ration who needs this much tea?" he dropped the packet onto the makeshift table, the pair of them were in the space Kat had turned into her field lab. Considering what Kore was he thought some privacy was prudent.

"So what's your endgame?" Her head snapped up at his question and he reached in to pull out one of the self cooking bags, all day breakfast printed on the front without the ingredients of course you would not want to frighten anyone away after all. He bent the bag in half and felt something click inside.

"What are you talking about?" She spat but James could tell her heart was not in it.

"This alliance, you what, leave the Covenant to join humanity? You know we are not exactly winning this war right? So what is the plan here, it's not everyday some shapeshifter aliens decide to throw there lot in with the guys getting vaporised from orbit."

"The Changelings were never part of the Covenant, we joined Humanity to escape them and Equestria." James nodded as he pulled open the bag and saw the piping hot breakfast mush, it smelt nice at least.

"What's Equestria? I feel like I am missing a lot of context here." He picked up a small metal scoop from the box and started to eat his meal, at least it was warm. Kore looked at him for a while before she sighed and slumped back into her chair.

"Changelings are a tribe from Equis, just like that Griffon and the Unicorn that you sighted. Thousands of years ago ponies became very powerful and began conquering the world. Changelings refused to bow down to them and as punishment we were banished to a prison, our entire race was not allowed to expand beyond ten thousand people, the ponies also made sure that while we had enough food to survive we never had enough to ever sate our hunger. This was our existence what they decided for us, an eternal punishment." Kore looked up at James who set aside his food and frowned.

"Thousands of years of this?"

"They crushed any rebellion, they hunted down any who escaped, if we had too many children they would take away the oldest first! This history of my people has been the history of imprisonment!"

"So all the other people on your homeworld became this Equestria? All the other tribes? This is incredibly implausible, how did so many sentient species come to exist on a single world?"

"I don't know, something to do with magic? Equis is saturated in it and most other worlds only have trace amounts. Anyway eventually Equestria began to colonise other planets and encountered the Covenant, they joined and became a powerful faction within that genocidal Empire."

"How did the changelings escape?"

"We were in a prison for thousands of years trying to escape, eventually you find a way. Not many of us made it, the ones that did hid within Covenant society, Equestria could not get away with dragging suspicious members of the Covenant away to the dungeon to torture them into confession if they were a changeling. We slowly rebuilt our number and waited for an opportunity."

"Humanity was that opportunity?" Kore nodded.

"The Covenant created from whole cloth religious justifications for attacking Humanity, we gathered as many Changelings as we could and the decision was unanimus, we could not abide by the genocide of humanity, but we were weak and few in number, we would have only burdened you rather then helped you fight against evil. So we sent our brightest minds to meet Humanity and give you all the information we could while the rest of us set out to infiltrate and secure ships to provide to Humanity." James finished off his meal before he responded.

"So you expected us to accept you from the start" Kore shrugged.

"No Idea, I was born on Reach, Changelings have been helping humanity since the war be-" With a thundering crash the door was thrown open causing James and Kore to leap to there feet and turn in surprise towards the fabricated door. The sounds of the battle outside had ceased.

Three figures stormed into the room, Lieutenant McKay in the front with two Spartians flanking her. Kore took a step back in fear as she looked into the skull scratched into the helmet of one of the Spartians and bruised and broken face of Kat as she glared at her.

"This the one? Looks good, I would never know." the concealed Spartan spoke with a quiet and deadly masculine voice.

"Saw it with my own eyes, its a green flash and then she is changed." Kat was looking at McKay who studied Kore carefully. Kore took another involuntary step back but bumped into James who rested a hand on her shoulder.

"I think you need to show them." His voice was calm and comforting. She looked at the three people before her before taking a breath and dropping her disguise. With a shimmer of green fire the petite pale women was replaced with a feminine humanoid with segmented black plates over its body and deep gouges bored into her arms, a tall frill sticking out from the back of her head and a pair of pale green insectoid wings fluttered uncertainty on her back as she stared forward with uniformly blue eyes. There was a long pause as the new Spartan and Mckay stared at her.

"What the fuck." The spartan broke the silence as he stepped forward and looked at her "do it again." He demanded and Kore let out a squeak of fear before another flare of green fire passed over her form and she was back to her human disguise.

"No, do someone else." Kat said quietly, her bruised and bloody face meeting the changelings eyes with a fierce intensity. With a third flash James was face to face with his doppleganger, Kore shedding the form of a young woman and taking flawlessly the tall and stocky frame of the american engineer.

"How the hell are you doing this?!" McKay demanded reaching forward to touch Kore's face and chest to make sure it was not a hologram.

"Its natural, all changelings can do it." Kore said in a perfect mimicry of James' voice.

"You are saying we have an alliance with these things?" The male spartan spat.

"If she was hostile why would she show us this? Why did she attack the griffon?" James stepped forward as Kore dropped his form in favour of her natural form.

"We are talking about an alien that can take human forms, she just admitted without any prompting that she can copy the appearance and voice of anyone!" Mckay crossed her arms.

"This is a precarious situation, but if there is infiltration it is at the highest levels of the ONI, orders are baked into the UNSC command codes." Kat looked at Kore before shaking her head. "We need the Lieutenant, she has enough black ink on her file to know all about this shit."

Wellsley appeared unceremoniously from the holographic projector. There was no indication that the AI understood the tension in the room as he began to speak immediately.

"The Covenant are engaging in a general retreat across the entire ring. The evacuation order and some internal conflict were the last things I could decypher from the Covenant battle net, it's a mess right now gaining any intelligence at this point is next to impossible. However before the network became strangled something interesting happened." Wellsley glanced about the room waiting for someone to speak.

"Go on." McKay nodded as she crossed her arms, she spared the time to glance over at the exposed changeling, Wellsley seemed to be taking that in his stride.

"The Battlecruiser _Truth and Reconciliation_ attempted to leave the surface of the ring after they reported some sort of broken quarantine, one of the ships in orbit fired upon it and the ship returned to its position. Right now its undergoing evacuation."

"So there is a Battlecruiser without a full crew on the surface?" McKay looked at Kat as Wellsley nodded.

"There is also a Battlecruiser in orbit that has been the subject to a boarding action, the last reports I can access suggest that its captain and crew were executed for some transgression and the ship has been left with only a few personnel that are keeping it in a stable orbit."

"Two vectors of escape!" James smiled and found himself almost giddy, the idea of surviving this ring had been absurd but to see the Covenant blunder this battle so utterly. The thrill of survival sent a jolt of energy through his worn body.

"Yes, I would recommend a general assault on the Truth and reconciliation followed by using our remaining air assets to deploy our ODST and Spartians to the Battlecrusier in orbit, with both ships secure they can protect each other as a slipspace course is plotted." McKay nodded at Wellsley and looked thoughtful before she spoke.

"I wish we had Silva but he has not called in since he went to that weapons cache, no word from Cortana on the control room either."

"We don't know how long this chaos in the Covinent's ranks will last." Kat turned away from Kore, happy to be dealing with a threat she knew how to manage.

"You are right." McKay sighed. "Get your team together, you will be leading my boys and taking Wellsley along with you to secure the _Truth and Reconciliation_, when you get control fly it over the butte to load up the rest of us, then we make an immediate orbital insertion of this other Battlecruiser."

"The _Sacred Inquisitor_" Wellsley informed them as the Spartains snapped to a neat salute and left to prepare. McKay turned about as Wellsley flickered and disappeared.

"Now what do I do about you?" The women mused as she looked at the alien form of Kore.

* * *

The route to the bridge was simple, despite most of the internal security systems being gutted there were still enough sensors and cameras to ensure that her path was far outside of common Covenant patrols. It was a simple matter of tapping into the ships systems and overcoming the few security measures that had not been destroyed when the AI pair had been extracted from the Pillar of Autumn.

Halsey was sitting in a navigator's chair, mostly because it had miraculously survived the heat of reentry with only minimal damage to its layer of padding giving her a moderately comfortable place to work from. But it also allowed her access to one of the many consoles that dotted the bridge with only a partially melted screen, distorting but not obscuring the interface as she explored the ships systems.

Indeed there was a single ship still in one of the hangar bays, a Longsword too small to carry a slipspace drive. Halsey's options were limited, however she now had a means to escape to space, now she just needed to collect her spartans and then launch an assault upon the Inquisitors ship, with the sleeping crewmen it was the only viable means of escaping the solar system.

There was a quiet pop of displaced air and a heavy sigh as Halsey's blood ran cold, she quickly crouched down as quiet as she could manage. She disengaged the safety on the pistol she had recovered. Hoofsteps, the rhythm of the sound confusing Halsey for a moment but after reminding herself of the alien was a quadruped. Something nagged at Halsey's mind as she regulated her breathing.

There was another long pause and the quiet tapping of a keyboard being manipulated. A faint mulberry glow that lit the burnt shadowy room before there was a loud sniff followed by a choked breath and a low wine. Halsey was dumbfounded as she listened to the Inquisitor fight back a sob.

Halsey slowly lifted herself to her feet and looked through the server banks separating her from Twilight Sparkle The mare was looking out through the shattered bridge window as let out a quiet sniffle. The floorplate Halsey was stood on creaked quietly. The ears, Halsey watched as Twilights ears twisted about to face her an instant before the mare snapped her head back to glare before her gaze turned from scorn to shock.

"Cathrine?" Halsey darted back from the server bank and quickly darted around the corner to point her pistol at the mare only to find her hand yanked roughly upwards. "Oh no we are not having a repeat of that episode Doctor Halsey." There was a moment of pause as Halsey's hand was pried roughly from the pistol but the moment allowed her a moment to examine the mare.

Halsey considered herself perceptive and it would not be arrogant to say that she had an incredible eye for detail and an excellent memory, it was not the larger, thicker set body and wings that stood out to her the most but the poise and confident expression upon her face.

"What are you even doing here?" Twilight demanded. "This ship has a covenant garrison, Why come here and not back to the Human base?" Before Halsey could respond the mare turned away stomping her hooves in frustration as she did so and let her magic holding her wrist dissipate. "We don't have time for this, whatever you are up too forget it, stay close and keep your head down."

"A more apt question would be why are you here." Halsey glanced about before she stepped closer to the mare tapping away at the bridges main console, her eyes widening as she realized what the mare was doing. "You have Keyes security codes. How did you get them?" Her voice was harsh, unusually emotional.

"He died trying to save me from the flood, God knows why." Twilight let out a sigh and shook her head before returning to the screen. "It looks like the reactor is still active in a standby state, she held up well."

"The reactor core, now why would you be interested in tha- of course. The ring's atmospheric and artificial gravity systems would force all the energy of a detonation outwards through the ring." Halsey found herself smiling at the simplicity of the plan.

"That is the idea, hopefully the cascade should be enough to destabilize the structure. Having you here complicates things somewhat." Twilight turned away from the console to glare at Halsey.

"Don't you worship the ring and its creators? This seems like an uncharacteristic move for you Inquisitor."

"I had a change of heart, still I need to address the garrison here and see if they have access to any transports, when this reactor goes critical we need to be at least in low orbit if we want to survive it."

"They don't as far as I can gather the ones that could fled when the order was given and the ones that stayed simply don't have the means to leave the surface. There is however a longsword fighter in one of the hangers that is ready for takeoff, I would need you to transport a package there for me before I am willing to leave."

"I need to be here for the Lieutenant and Cortana, hopefully the rest of the Spartans too if they can find them. If you don't want to leave I could simply carry you." Halsey let out a yelp of surprise as she found herself levitated several feet off the ground by a grinning Twilight.

"I have a wounded Spartan in a medical bay on this deck!" Halsey shouted not amused in the slightest.

"It is incredibly irresponsible to trust me with that information Cathrine, I am a member of the Covenant." Twilight set the women down and set her face into a stern almost familiar expression.

"One that seems to grasp the function of this installation. I would be happy to play cloak and dagger ONI games with you when the fate of all living things does not hang in the balance." There was a pause as Twilight stared at her before letting out a long suffering sigh.

"Very well, let's grab this Spartan, we need to hurry. We have a slim deadline." Twilight presented the floating pistol to Halsey who plucked the weapon from the air before the pair of them left the bridge.

* * *

Gilda stalked forwards moving as little as possible to prevent excess heat building up and forcing her to drop her cloak. Damp pulsating flesh oozed under her paws as she moved through the infected corridors surrounding the engine section of the ship. Unused corpses and rancid yellowing meat lined the walls revealing the grizzly origin of the biomatter coating the bulkheads around her.

Animated corpses would lumber about in small parties, some leaving the infected sections for the wider ships and others returning with fresh bodies or biomass, many thousands more than she could reasonably fight. The hall leading to the engine control room was protected by a trio of infected ponies and a hunched over Unggoy, all of them had warped faces locked into expressions of agony as the snapping red ribbon feelers of the parasite puppeted the bodies.

Behind the four guards was a thin membrane door, the biomass acting as a clenched muscle that prevented passage. She had witnessed a dead Unicorn pass through the section several times, it seemed the parasite was using the Unicorns to operate the mechanical sections of the ship.

So she waited for another to pass so she could access the room without alerting the greater parasite, she had been surprised to find her presence was unknown to the larger organism considering she was likely standing inside of it, but supposed that given the incredible extent of it and the doubtless manifold sensations it had to process that the minor sensation she made as she passed over the organic floor.

"_Dash to Gilda._" With a thought Gilda sent an acknowledgement to Dash, she would normally be confident enough in her armour's ability to dampen sound but there was no need to test her luck. "_The Ops team are moving off to one of the medical bays to get the bucking coward out of his hole, once he is safe they will get a ship to dock and we can get the civilians out._"

Gilda sent another ping of acknowledgement as another infected Unicorn lumbered down the passage, there was a pause as it stopped just before the large organic barrier and with an unsettling wet sound the muscle relaxed opening a round hole that the Unicorn wasted no time stumbling through. With feline grace Gilda darted in behind the corpse before the door could clamp shut once more.

The engine control room was large and modeled in a similar manner to a battleships bridge, a raised section with a desk in the middle from which the chief engineer can look out over the stations of her subordinates. The infection had perverted the station, cysts of infected matter coated workstations and workers that had been caught at their stations worked there still with faces contorted into expressions of horror and agony as their bodies were puppeted.

At the raised workstation dozens of bodies were piled up as if the infection was preparing for some dark ritual. Gilda wasted no time, with a single overhead strike she brought the butt of her rifle down upon the dead mares back. Before the destroyed corpse hit the ground she darted forward and grasped the head of one of the many idol bodies the infected had protecting the control room and twisted, matter had no choice but to yield to the Griffon and another puppet fell with its strings cut.

The others reacted as one, but slowly. Coordinated only in the graceless blind attack on the unseen intruder. Gilda simply moved this way and that, her camouflage flickering as her rapid movement caused incredible searing heat to build up over her armour. Plasma weapons were discharged, weak disorganized magical blasts fired and limbs that had been mutilated into weapons swung uselessly as Gilda performed her grizzly work. There was that awful sound denoting the entrance opening and the lion eagle spun about drawing one of the many runestones from her hip and letting out a screech, a command in the first tongue to demand the universe alter itself to her whim.

It resisted as it did all who would exercise control over the energy that permeates the universe but it did not daunt her, though her armour and the shimmering displaced light that coated her form motes of arcane origin formed and where propelled forward striking the puppeted corpses that tried to crawl through the door. Fire, if it could be called that, dark energy that licked and unmade flowed down the hall away from her. It moved as if eager to kill darting from one cluster of organic matter to the next, it would continue for a time before its own nature unmade it.

Her camouflage failed and the glowing Griffon was revealed to what remained of the dead defenders, runes painted into her flesh lit brightly as they struggled to contain the magics that ran rampant through her nervous system. Magics that would have rendered all but the most powerful Unicorns ash submitted, unwillingly, to the Griffon Knight.

She turned back to the battle leaving a glowing trail as she darted from one enemy to the next rending them apart with blunt force and savage application of her talons. When it was done Gilda stood lamely for a moment, the strange trance one felt at the end of a battle. She shook herself awake again and turned to the engine controls ripping an imobile corpse from its station and throwing it away as she began to diagnose the console.

The ship's systems were a mess, but Gilda found what she needed, the controls to the slipspace drive she began to deactivate its localised shielding. The equipment would function without shields and would do so safely, they were purely there to prevent the drive from being destroyed should that section of the ship receive damage. Now that it was unprotected she simply needed to fight her way to the drive and destroy it. Hopefully by then Dash would have the ability to activate the ships self destruct sequence.

There was a gurgling cry, it seemed that she had less time then she expected, she turned to meet the dead with her own blood call.


End file.
